


Old Souls

by speedyvibraniumdevil



Series: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier [5]
Category: Avengers, Bucky Barnes - Fandom, Captain America, MCU, Marvel, Winter Soldier - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Blood, Bucky barnes x reader - Freeform, Cussing, F/M, Fanfiction, Guns, Jessica Jones crossover, Reader Insert, Violence, Wounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 20:16:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15372489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speedyvibraniumdevil/pseuds/speedyvibraniumdevil
Summary: Your aunt runs an antique shop in the lower parts of Manhattan, and asks you to work in her shop once a week. You happily take the job, but then on your first day you have a strange encounter with an unusual customer - Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier. Things ensue as the two of you end up becoming friends - and maybe even more - as you reminisce about the old things that you love as well as your mysterious pasts.





	1. An Unexpected Customer

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there AO3 babes! I've been posting all of my fics of Tumblr as of late and finally decided to post some of the stuff I have up over there onto here. I'm starting off with this series, which was my first Bucky x reader fic ever. Hope you guys like it!

You walk out of the social sciences building at Columbia University as you just finished your last class of the week. You take a deep breath and inhale the fresh autumn air. It’s still a little warm, but the weather is slowly starting to get colder. Just how you liked it.

You sling both straps of your backpack on when you suddenly get a phone call.  

“Hello?” you call into the device.

“Y/N? It’s your Aunt Rachel. I’m calling from the new landline at the shop.”

“Oh, hi Aunt Rachel! How are Tommy and Lily?” you smile excitedly.

You loved your aunt so much and were always willing to take a phone call from her (even though you saw her every weekend). Tommy and Lily were her children, your cousins.

“They’re doing great! They miss you when you’re not around.”

You start walking towards the edge of campus to head home.

You chuckle, “I miss them too. Was there a reason you were calling?”

“Yes, actually. I was wondering if you were still looking for another job, because if you are, I would love for you to take over the shop for me maybe once a week. I know you how much you love spending time there to begin with, so I thought I’d ask.”

You walk out the gates, down the street towards the subway station.

Your aunt Rachel ran an Antique shop down in lower Manhattan. It was one of her passions and you frequented it as much as you could. Whenever you would visit her it was often at that shop and it made you happy just to window-shop the different sections. You also liked bonding with her about your love for the antique.

“What happened to Paul?” you ask.

Paul was an old man that worked there and took over the shop for your Aunt when she needed. 

Her voice turned somber, “I didn’t tell you? He passed away from a heart attack a couple of days ago.”

You feel a pang of sadness and shock. You used to like Paul’s old stories whenever you would see him at the shop. You tell your aunt how terrible the news is, and she says that she now had her hands a little full, as she was the only worker there.

“I’d be more than happy to help.” You say.

“Really? That’s great! It would only be on Saturdays, since Tom and Lily start soccer soon. And you would start immediately. I’ll pay you double what you would earn in a day.”

“Okay, sounds like a plan. I’ll make sure to be there an hour before opening.”

“Awesome, and I’ll be there to explain your job really briefly. Thank you so much, Y/N. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

“Of course! I owe you a lot, Aunt Rachel, and I needed the job anyway.” 

You stand outside the steps that lead towards the subway. You didn’t want to lose signal before you got a chance to hang up.

“I’ll see you then, baby girl.”

“I’ll see you on Saturday.”

***

On Saturday, you took the train to lower Manhattan from your apartment in Hell’s Kitchen at 10am. You were tired from working a double shift as a barista the day before. This was how you spent the majority of your life: either focusing on school or working to pay for it.

You get to your aunt’s antique shop, a relatively normal sized storefront shoved under a big brick building. A sign that read “Blissful Antiques” was hung over the entrance. A sign on the door said that it was closed, but your aunt saw you from inside and unlocked the door for you. A bell jingled as she did so, and let you inside.

You give your aunt a big hug once she locks the door again. Her curly hair tickles your face and you giggle. She pulls away and gives you a bright smile like she often had plastered on her face.

“How’s Hell’s Kitchen, treatin’ ya?”

“Well, it’s crazy, but I deal.” 

Devils, and Punishers, and other vigilantes liked to hole up in your home. It sounded crazy, but you couldn’t bring yourself to leave. At first it was just a place to stay when you couldn’t afford anything else, but now it was your home and you had came to appreciate it and the friends you made. You just made sure not to tell your family any details that they didn’t need to know. Even if your dad was hellbent on getting you out of there. 

“What about school?” your aunt continues.

“It’s going pretty good. Just working my butt off as per usual to get that degree.”

“At least you’ll be graduating next semester, so that’s exciting.”

“Yeah, finally.” You sigh in relief.

“Anyways. Let me just explain everything so I can get out of your hair before the store opens.”

She gives you a tour of the whole shop. Even though you had been there a million times, she went in depth about things you never really knew about.

There was a large desk at the entrance where the cash register and keys were. From there it branches off into two paths where glass display cases and wooden shelves were available to walk through. Jewelry, dolls, glassware, collectibles, and so much more were encased in them. There were also a few sections of old furniture and records. The shop often felt like it went on forever.

Your aunt talked to you about where each key belonged and how to open the cabinets if need be. You would be cleaning, tending to customers, and just keeping track of the shop. Every now and then they got a new box of stuff, so if that happened you would be helping with that as well. 

“We just got in a new box yesterday.” She informed you as she led you to a part in the back of the place. “A bunch of stuff from World War 2. It’s pretty cool.”

She stopped in front of the new mini display behind the glass. There was a bunch of memorabilia, as well as helmets, parts of uniforms, pictures, and the like. There was something eerie about it. Your aunt explained how the box had turned up randomly with the donations.

She finished the tour by showing you a stereo behind the counter where music would play on the speakers. She turned it on and dreamy sounds and voices from the 1930s started singing overhead.

“Just make sure to turn it off once you leave. But I’ll most likely be dropping in before closing, anyway.” She grins.

She asks you if you have any more questions, but you shake your head no. You had a good idea of how she ran things here, and you had no worries.

“Okay, good. Now, I should probably get going. Tommy has a game at 12 and I should be getting my ass over there.”

She leans in and gives you a big hug and you can’t help but smile at her warmth and smell of vanilla. She leaves you the keys as you say your good byes, grabs her purse, and exits the shop as she blows you a kiss.

You lean against the front desk, not sure what to do with yourself for a few minutes. You check your phone for the time, and see that you had 15 minutes until opening. You get yourself situated before flipping the sign over and getting your day started.

***

Your first day at the shop went relatively smooth. Since it was Saturday, a good amount of people came in to take a look at things. Every now and then someone would buy something and you would look through the keys to go unlock whatever cabinet the item was in. You would even answer questions to the best of your ability about the authenticity of certain items. 

After eating your lunch from around the corner, you start to clean up the place, getting distracted with whatever caught your eye.

There was one item in particular that you never failed to stop at, especially on days that you would come by when your aunt was working. It was a small, silver locket in the shape of an octagon, with an intricately carved lotus flower in the center. It was the most beautiful piece of jewelry that you had ever seen. 

Sadly, it cost damn near $150, and you couldn’t afford to splurge the money. Luckily for you, no one had bought it yet for that same reason. So you were free to stare at it whenever you could.

When you were done cleaning, you sat down at the desk and started reading a book to pass the time. You let the music fill your ears as background noise to the story. 

You suddenly hear the bell jingle, and see the shadow of a person out of the corner of your eye. 

You automatically greet with: “Welcome.”

Except when you look up from your book, there’s no one there. You make a face of confusion. Either this person was fast or they decided not to come inside after all. You shrug and go back to your book. 

After a while you hear a shuffling from beyond the store. You decide to go check and see if it was a customer that needed any help with something. The sound of old dance music played all around you. It almost made you wish you knew how to dance to it.

You walk between the shelves and glass cases, looking for whoever was in the shop with you. You hear another noise, like sniffling from a short distance away. You frown, worriedly.

_Was someone crying?_

You hear the shuffling again, as you realize that it’s coming from where the new display had been put up - the one with WW2 antiquities. You make your way to it and when you do, you see the shape of a tall man standing in front of it. He had a hand leaned against the glass while his other was in his jacket pocket. There was a baseball cap on his head, obscuring part of his features.

His chest was rising and falling fairly quickly.

“Hey, are you okay?” you ask as you step carefully towards him.

He quickly pushes himself off of the glass and looks down at his feet. He wipes at his face with his right hand.

“Sorry, I was just…” he started, “yeah I’m fine.”

His voice was low and gruff. Uneven.

“Are you sure?”

You step closer to him, unconvinced by the state that you just saw him in. You reach out a hand to touch his left arm, but he flinches away from your touch. His eyes connect with yours and his face comes into full view. Your mouth drops open as you recognize who he is immediately.

It was Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier.

You had only ever seen pictures of him in the Captain America exhibit that you had visited a long time ago, and you had heard of his return on the news. His hair was short in the pictures that you had seen from back in the 1940s and he was clean-shaven. Today, his hair was much longer and his facial hair was growing in. And you wouldn’t lie – he was attractive. Every feature in his face was sharp, especially his jawline. Baby blue eyes looked back at you, and they were filled with trouble and sadness.

The look of surprise on your face must have been mistaken for fear, because he averted his gaze immediately.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” he stuttered. “I’ll go.”

He moves past you to head out of the shop, but then accidentally knocks over a glass vase that rested on a piece of furniture. The vase crashes to the floor and shatters on impact.

“Shit.” He curses.

He bends down to try and clean it up, taking out the other hand from his pocket. 

“No, it’s okay-” you crouch down to stop him, but then gasp as you notice the metal fingers of his left hand.

_So it was true. He had a metal arm._

You couldn’t help but stare at it.

He stops and looks up at you, then back where your gaze is at his metal appendage. 

He closes his eyes and whispers: “Fuck.” Then he straightens up and makes for the exit.

You try stopping him.

“Wait, come back.”

You step around the pieces of glass on the floor and follow him to the front. Just as he opens the front door, making the bell ring, you call out:

“Bucky!”

He pauses, his flesh hand on the open door, without looking back at you. 

“You didn’t scare me.” You say, truthfully.

He stands there for a few seconds, but then steps out the door onto the sidewalk, letting the door slam shut behind him.

You stand there, dumbfounded by the strange encounter, next to the front desk. Part of you wishes you could have gone outside and convinced him to come back, but you figured that he was long gone by now. And there was probably no point in trying to make the Winter Soldier do anything. 

 _Maybe I shouldn’t have reacted so audibly to his metal arm_. You mentally slap yourself.

You look at the clock and see that it’s almost 4pm, an hour before closing time. Your aunt would be back soon, and maybe you would tell her about your run in with Bucky Barnes.

Bucky. James. The Winter Soldier. Which one was it?

Whichever it was, you would probably never find out. He’s probably never coming back again. Not that it mattered…or did it?

***

When your aunt comes back, she gives you a ride back to her place in Queens to have dinner. Your uncle, Lily, Tom, and your dad who was also joining everyone this evening greet you. Your dad was still in his police uniform, looking exhausted, as he took you in his embrace.

“Hey, kiddo.”

“Hey, dad.”

You all sit down at the dinner table and your aunt Rachel starts serving the pasta that she just made. Everyone talks about his or her days. The kids crack jokes and say funny things as they usually did. Then they ask you about school and work. You tell them as much as you can, including about your first day at the shop. The only thing you leave out is your encounter with the Winter Soldier. The last thing you needed was your dad to get all riled up and protective over nothing.

Especially since he wasn’t entirely convinced that Bucky Barnes was “better” after being a Russian Assassin for 70 years. After hearing that Tony Stark had pardoned both he and Steve Rogers, allowing them to living on the compound, it brought out the skeptic in your father.

“How can they trust that this guy won’t kill them in their sleep?” He said one day as you watched the news on the television.

“Dad, he was brain washed. He had no control of what he was doing all those years.” You would argue.

“Yeah, well…I hope you and Cap are right enough about that. Or else it’s cops like us that have to deal with this mess.”

You couldn’t help but think about Bucky’s eyes when you had seen them earlier. There wasn’t an ounce of evil in them as far as you could tell. Instead you saw longing and regret. And you never thought you’d feel bad for someone that was twice your size, had a metal arm, and was supposed to be a lethal killer. But you did.

Now, as you all finished dinner, you help your aunt with the dishes. You take this opportunity to tell her about what happened while everyone else was in the living room watching TV.

“So, I wanted to talk to you about something.” You said in a low voice.

“What’s up?”

“Today, at the shop, there was a man…”

She furrows her brow, “Like an attractive man or a creepy one?”

“Uh, well, he wasn’t  _not_  attractive, but that’s not the point.”

She giggles, “Okay, what about this man?”

“I think - no, I know… that it was the Winter Soldier.” You whisper his name to make sure that no one else hears you.

Your aunt gasps, “Wait – really? Did he do something, what happened?”

“No, he didn’t do anything. I barely saw him come in. He was just there at the shop.”

She twists her mouth suspiciously. “That’s odd. Remind me of what he looks like again?” 

“He’s tall, has long hair, blue eyes, a metal arm. Looks very mysterious.”

Her mouth opens in a big “O” as she makes of face of realization.

“I knew he looked familiar!” she exclaimed in a whisper.

“Wait? You’ve seen him there before?”

“Yeah, but only once. He came in all broody with a hat and a hoodie, and I thought he was going to cause some trouble. But he just wandered around the store for a while, looked at everything and then left without purchasing anything. I thought I had seen him somewhere but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.” She explained.

You bit your lip pensively, “But what would a super soldier be doing at an Antique shop?” 

She shrugs, “Beats me. Maybe he misses his era. Didn’t he and Cap serve in the second World War?”

You widen your eyes in realization. How could you forget? Not only could she be right about him missing the 1940s, but also you now knew why he looked like he had been crying when you found him. The new display case of WW2 memorabilia must have triggered something in him.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he did.” 


	2. The Soldier Returns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You were sure that you had scared Bucky off and that you'd never get to see him again, but as the fates would have it, the Winter Soldier makes another appearance at your aunt's shop.

The following Monday, your second class was cancelled. So after finishing your first, you decided to head on over to the shop to see if your Aunt needed help with anything. She gladly gave you the job of unpacking boxes of new books, dusting them off, and figuring out the pricing of them with her laptop.

As you unboxed vintage poetry and children’s books on the floor, you couldn’t help but think about your run in with Bucky that occurred two days earlier. Maybe he thought he had frightened you, but it was you who felt bad for scaring him off. You wished that you had another chance to tell him that you weren’t one of those people that still saw him as a killer.

The bell rings at the front of the store and you perk up at the sound. You hear your aunt’s voice greet the customer, and you go back to searching on the computer for the price of a copy of Wuthering Heights from the 1920s. However, you can’t help but eavesdrop as their voices trail from the front desk.

“Is there something I could help you with?”

“Yeah. I, uh, broke a vase the last time I was here and I was wondering how much it was so I could pay for it.” You hear a familiar male voice coming from the front.

You snap your head back up again and your eyes widen. Speak of the devil.

_Could it be?_

You listened more intently now.

“Oh, I think my niece mentioned something about that.”

“Yeah…sorry.”

You set the book down on the floor and slowly get up, making your way towards the head of the shop.

“Well, for Captain America’s friend and a war hero, it’s at no cost.” You hear your Aunt say.

As you slowly make your way past the one of the glass displays, the back of your aunt’s body comes into view, as well as the front side of Bucky Barnes himself. He had the same hat on, but a different jacket. His hands were in gloves this time as they rested on the surface of the desk.

You see that he winces at your aunt’s words.

“Please, ma’am, I’d rather you let me pay for it. It’s the least I could do.”

You take a light step forward so you aren’t heard, but Bucky still notices you from beyond the counter and his attention immediately goes to you. Your eyes lock for a second and you see that his blue ones widen at the sight of you. You try giving him a small smile, but he just puts his hands in his pockets and turns his gaze to the counter.

Your aunt notices his sudden change in demeanor and follows his line of vision behind her and looks at you. You both raise your eyebrows at each other, and then she goes back to looking at Bucky.

“Okay, fine.” she concedes, “You can pay for the vase.”

Bucky nods with a forced curved of his lips.

“I’ll have my niece ring you up.” She says, “Y/N.”

She calls you with a motion of her head, and you finish the trip up to the front desk. Your eyes connect with Bucky’s once again as you eye each other. There was a nervous look to them.

“Ring this young man up for me will you? Charge him $100.”

You knew for a fact that it was worth well over that price, but your Aunt was humoring him.

You nod with a smile as she pats your shoulder, and heads deeper into the shop to do god knows what. A small smile plays on your lips as you move to punch some numbers into the cash register. You could feel the Winter Soldier’s eyes on you the whole time.

“Didn’t think you’d come back,” you break the awkwardness.

He clears his throat. “To be completely honest, I wasn’t going to, but something told me to come back and at least pay for what I broke.”

“That’s awfully considerate of you.” You glance at him with a smirk.

You finish setting up the register.

“Cash or card?” you ask.

He gives you a confused look, but then shakes his head as he makes sense of your words.

“Right.”

He fishes for his wallet and takes out the plastic credit card from one of the pockets. He hands it to you.

“I still don’t understand how this thing works.” He says.

You giggle as you take the card from him. “How did you get one in the first place?”

He shrugs, “Tony Stark gave it to me when I moved into the compound. Said not to spend it on anything stupid.”

“Well, essentially, it’s just a piece of plastic with invisible money in it. You slide it into a machine and voila,” you slide the card into the reader and help Bucky with the rest of the steps.

You charge him the $100, and have him sign the receipt when you’re done. His signature spells out “James B. Barnes” in surprisingly nice cursive writing.

“And that’s it.” You say with a smile.

You look straight into his face and he looks back at you. You begin to admire his features, his piercing gaze and the way his brown locks framed his cheekbones. You stop yourself as you realize that you’re staring. A blush starts to form on your cheeks so you turn away. You swear you saw a grin play on his lips.

“I guess now is a good time as any to say that I’m sorry for the other day.” He says.

You look back up at him and shake your head, “I should be the one who apologizes. I made you think that you scared me, when you didn’t.”

“ _You’re_  apologizing? So I really didn’t scare you?” His brow knitted together.

“No.” you smile at his expression, “And I think I made that clear before you ran out the door. You just surprised me. I mean this is the last place I would have expected an Avenger to make an appearance.”

He chuckles, “That’s true. And I wouldn’t call myself an Avenger.”

“Then what are you if not an Avenger?”

He scratches the back of his neck. “Uh…Under construction?” 

You laugh and he joins in.

“So, what was it that made you come in here in the first place?” you ask curiously.

“I decided to take a walk one day, clear my head, when I heard the music playing from inside the shop. Decided to take a look inside and, well…” he hesitates, “a lot of this stuff reminded me of who I was before. Before all of this.” He lifts his left hand, his metal one that was gloved.

You feel a surge of sympathy for him.

“Next thing you know I’m coming back a second time and I run into you.”

“Well I’m glad you did.” you smirk, “It made for an interesting first day.”

“You just started working here?” he asks, “Do you work here every day, or…?”

“No, I just work on Saturdays. I had some free time today, though.”

“Oh, okay.” He nods casually.

He puts his hands in his pockets.

“Feel free to stop by any time you like,” you pause, “Bucky.”

He raised his eyebrows at the use of his name.

“Can I call you Bucky, or do you prefer James?”

He smiles. “Either way is just fine, doll.”

***

**Saturday**

You take a walk around the store, asking customers if they needed any help as they looked around. You just ate lunch and cleaned the place. The vintage music played overhead once again, some song about not wanting to leave the jungle. 

You go over to the left side of the store where the boxes of books had been. Your Aunt hadn’t gotten around to pricing them all, so you take on the job of finishing up. You grab the last of the boxes resting on one of the shorter display cases and lifted it. You thought you had a good hold of it, but to your dismay, it was much heavier than you imagined. It starts to dig in with its weight into your arms.

“Shit.” You say as you feel your arms give in to gravity.

However, the drop never happens, and you feel the weight of the box start to lighten.

_What the shit._

“Need some help?”

With your hold still on the box, you peer your head to the side of the box, and you’re met with the face of Bucky Barnes on the other side of it. His brown locks were tucked behind his ears. You’re startled by his sudden appearance, but also happy, especially since he had come to your rescue.

“Yes, actually.” You giggle.

He takes the box of books fully off your arms as if it was nothing. You take a deep breath as you’re left panting from the exertion.

“Hi.” He says.

“Hi.” You return breathlessly.

“Where do you want it?” he asks.

“Over by the front desk.”

You follow him as he walks over there and you tell him to set the books down on the floor next to the chair. He gives a small grunt as he placed it down.

“Thank you.” You beam at him.

“No problem. I think you would have been crushed if I hadn’t walked in.”

“Not all of us have a metal arm to help us, sadly.”

He chuckles.

You start taking books out from the box and set them down on the desk.   
Bucky leans over the counter and picks one of them up to examine it and flip through the pages. You watch him as a ponderous expression takes over his face. 

You couldn’t help but smile at the fact that he had returned for another time. And on your work day no less.

“Do you like reading?” you ask.

He shrugs, “I used to do it a bit. Books about science and stuff. The Hobbit was also pretty big back in my day, I remember.”

You snort, “‘Back in my day’?”

“I’m pushing 100, I’m bound to sound like an old man.”

He drops the book back down on the stack. You see that the book was an old copy of “The Outsiders”.

“Well, this was published in the 60s.” you say, “It’s a good book, made me cry. You should read it.”

He furrows his brow, “I don’t know if I want to read a book that makes me cry.”  
“Everybody needs a good cry every once in a while. And like I said, it’s a good book.”

He snorts, “If you say so, doll.”

Your stomach flutters at his use of the word “doll”. You figured it was just a thing people had used in the 1940s since you had never heard anyone else say it before. He probably called all women “doll”, but it somehow made you feel like you were his girlfriend. 

You liked it.

“I’ll, uh, let you get back to work.” He says as he pushes off the counter and heads further into the shop.

A half hour goes by and you get through a number of books before deciding to make a loop around the store. You pass by an old couple just browsing around, and you find Bucky near a display of old cameras. He eyes them, pensively.

“Does it help at all?” you can’t help but make the query. “With missing it?”

He turns his head back to glance at you, “I’m not sure.”

He steps over to a shelf with baseball cards and memorabilia. You walk over so you’re standing next to him, regarding the contents of the shelves just as he does.

He continues. “I think I need to remember everything in order to miss it, but my memory hasn’t been the same since…”

He closes his eyes and shakes his head. You decide not to pry. You knew what he meant – the experiments and brain washing done by Hydra, turning him into the Winter Soldier. You had read all about it.

“Most of it is coming back to me, but I’m still picking up the pieces.” He speaks in a low voice.

Your lips curve into a small frown. You wanted to reach out and comfort him, but based on your last attempt to do that, it wasn’t a good idea. 

“All I know is that this stuff brings flashes sometimes that I try to make sense of. Plus it doesn’t look at me like I could break down at any moment. So, yeah, in a way it helps.”

He peers over at you, like he was searching for something in your eyes, and then back to the glass case. 

“What?” you ask at his expression.

“You don’t look at me that way either…Why?”

You’re surprised by his question. You didn’t realize that you were or weren’t looking at him in a certain way.

“I’m open-minded?” you say it like a question, because even you’re not sure.

A chuckle comes from his lips.

“Maybe.”

Bucky leaves about an hour later. The two of you make lighter conversation when you’re not too busy.  You also finish up with the books. 

When he’s gone, you realize that the old copy of “The Outsiders” was missing from the pile. You smile. He had taken it after all.


	3. The Outsider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, there's some interactions between Bucky and the reader, and you get to learn a little bit about the her. Just a tad, a small look into her background.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if there's a lack of notes. This series is already finished so I'm not freaking out as much as I uploaded it the first time aaah

You sit at the front desk, reading as you wait patiently for any business to arise, when suddenly you hear the door open and see a hand come down with the copy of the Outsiders under it. You smile as you look up at Bucky, and he slides the book towards you.

You put your own book down, making sure not to lose your page.

“Did you like it?” you asked.

“I hated it.” He said with a straight face.

You frown, “Really?”

Bucky can’t help but grin. “No, I didn’t.  You were right, it was pretty good.”

He said it like he didn’t want to admit you were right.

You beam up at him. “Did it make you cry?”

He sputters; “No,” but there’s a curve of his lips that betrays his words.

“Liar.”

“Am not.”

“Whatever you say,” you raise an eyebrow, “doll.”

He narrows his eyes and shakes his head at you, then rests his elbows on the desk.

“So is this going to be a regular thing, you stopping by here?” you ask.

“I guess so. Why, do you want me to leave? Because I can.” He points to the door with his gloved thumb.

“No, no, you can stay. Believe it or not, I’m starting to like having you pop up around here.”

Bucky chuckles while running his human hand through his hair.

_As if he didn’t know how pretty he was._

“Good, because I’d probably have to find some other place to bother if you didn’t.”

“And some other girl to talk to.” You add playfully, “Not that you’d find another like me, of course.”

You grab the book he returned and get out of your seat to go shelve it. Bucky follows slowly behind you as you do so.

“Can’t say I disagree.” He says.

You slide the book back into the shelf with the others and turn back to face Bucky.

“Because it’s true.” You giggle.

You get behind the desk but don’t sit down. You had so many questions for Bucky but you kept them to a minimum. 

“I’m curious, don’t you have special, top secret missions to get to?”

“Well if they were top secret then I wouldn’t be able to tell you, would I?” He scrunched up his face.

“Touche.”

He still goes on, “But, no. No missions yet. Stark’s still having me evaluated, and as annoying as it is, I don’t blame him.”

“Hmmm.” you manage, “And nobody knows what you’re up to when you sneak off to come over here?”

He shakes his head rapidly from side to side. “Nooo. And It’s none of their damn business what I do in my free time, anyways.”

You give him a nod. “Good to know.”

***

When lunchtime came, you insisted that Bucky join you to go and get hotdogs from a cart that was down the street. When you’re eating on the way back, Bucky smiles like he remembered something.

“What are you smiling about?” you ask.

He tells you about the time that he and Steve used all their train money to buy hotdogs. It makes you giggle. And seeing Bucky laugh was a rare gem within itself.

When you got back to the shop and finished your lunch, the two of you spent the rest of your lunch break traipsing through the shop as you talked. Every once in a while he’d pick something up that he recognized and he’d mention how he used to own one. Or if there were something from after his era, you’d tell him what it was.

“So, this stuff doesn’t bore you?” he refers to everything, “I mean, I would think that most people in your generation wouldn’t find all this old stuff interesting.” 

“Well, I’m not most people.” You answer.

“That’s true.” He chuckles.

You cross your arms, “You seem very confident in thinking that you know me so well considering we haven’t known each other that long.”

“I know, but I’m good at reading people, Y/N. It’s one of the skills I’ve acquired.”

“Hmm, we’ll see about that.” you squint your eyes at him.

You continue on to answer his question.

“Anyways, I’ve always had a fondness for the vintage. There’s so much history attached to everything and it’s all so beautiful compared to things that are made today. That’s a thing my aunt and I share: we both love this stuff. I wouldn’t make a career out of it, but it’s definitely like a happy place.”

You tell him this as you scan everything in the room. A lot of the things there were ones you wished belonged in your own home. You look at Bucky and he has a little smile on his lips and nods.

“So if this isn’t what you want to do as a career, then what do you want to do?”

You inhale deeply and then exhale as you prepared to answer the question.

“Well…to be honest…and I haven’t told anyone this - I’m not really sure anymore.”

“Do you go to school?”

“Yeah at Columbia.”

There’s a look of fascination on Bucky’s face.

“Isn’t that an Ivy League?”

“Yup, and I’m doing my M.B.A. in Psychology there. And if I want to get even deeper I have to go to medical school. But I’m just not sure if that’s what I want to do anymore.”

“What do you want to do instead?” he asked.

“That’s the thing, that part hasn’t come to me yet.”

“Then don’t force yourself to do something you don’t want to do.” Bucky says it as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

“It’s not that simple.” You say in exasperation.

“Why not?”

“Because I’ve come this far already, and to change course completely this late in the game would set me back so far. And I have no plan.” You explain.

Bucky argued. “That doesn’t mean you should give up your happiness because of it.”

You pause at one of the glass displays with Jewelry in it, the one with the silver locket you always admired. Your eyes automatically go to it.

“Maybe not,” you’re mesmerized by the lotus in the center, “but acquiring happiness isn’t exactly the easiest thing to so in the first place.”

You hear Bucky hum in indignation.

“You got that right.”

You whip around to look at Bucky and his head was turned towards the floor. You’re hit with a sudden wave of guilt.

“I’m so sorry,” you start, “Here I am, talking about one stupid dilemma when you’ve been through hell.”

His eyes look up at you and they look worried.

“It’s not a problem, doll. Don’t minimize your troubles for me.” He tries to smile but comes out as a wince.

You stand there facing him for a few seconds in silence. A couple walks by behind him towards the back of the store.

“Do you talk about it?” you ask carefully.

His head cranes back up to look straight at you.

“I try not to.” He walks over to look at a random shelf.

“Do you  _want_  to talk about it?”

“Not exactly.”

You look down at your hands. “Sorry.”

Even though you ached to know more about him, you had to know when to stop the questions. It was your inner psychologist that was ingrained into your brain talking.

Bucky’s hand reaches out to rest under your chin and tilts your head back up to look at him. His eyes look surprisingly reassuring; his lips were in a lopsided frown. 

“Don’t feel bad, doll. My history isn’t exactly the easiest thing to stomach in the first place. You wouldn’t want to hear it.” He shakes his head.

He drops his hand from your chin and goes back to examining the objects on the shelves.

You eye him thoughtfully. Perhaps he was right. The things he did for the Russians were most likely stuff of nightmares. However, between having a cop for a father, living in Hell’s Kitchen, seeing the aftermath of the battle of New York, and watching your mother die, there wasn’t much you hadn’t seen or heard in your life. The drastic and unusual were a part of it, and it took a lot to scare you nowadays.

“You’d be surprised at what I’d be able to stomach.” You mutter.

Bucky hears you clearly and looks at you with curiosity, as if looking for a hint in your eyes of what it was that you meant. He didn’t ask you about it, though. But you figured that maybe one day, the day would come when you would both open up to each other. At least that’s what you would have liked.


	4. Krav Maga

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reader has an interesting pass time. Also, lunch with dad!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some sparring/mild violence, but no blood or anything major in this chapter. Enjoy!

Bucky made it a weekly thing for him to stop by at your Aunt’s shop during your workdays. He would always come in right before your lunch break, and one time he even brought food to eat for the both of you. He wouldn’t stay the whole time that you were there, even though it seemed like he wanted to.

There would be times when he would want to help you out with your job, but you would tell him not to bother. You only worked there once a week and you weren’t about to let him do your job for you (especially since there wasn’t much to do). However, if heavy boxes or furniture were involved, you would gladly let him take the load. 

You’d exchange stories, but you especially loved hearing about his adventures in the 40s with Steve. It was one of the only things he ever really opened up about with you, but you still appreciated it. And every now and then an elderly person would start talking to the two of you about their own memories of the past. It made the two of you happy to hear about it, and sometimes Bucky would even learn something new. 

You’d tell Bucky about how you grew up in Queens and he would immediately start talking about Brooklyn. As any New Yorker would do.

One day, after seeing you stare at the silver locket that you loved for the millionth time, Bucky asked you about it.

“Why do you always stop to look at that necklace?”

You snapped out of your fantasy about wearing it and look at Bucky.

“Oh,” you giggle nervously, “It’s just – it’s so gorgeous. But I can’t afford it, so all I can do is hope no one else buys it.”

“Your Aunt owns the shop, can’t she just let you have it?” Bucky gazed at the piece of jewelry with you as he leaned gently against the display.

You shake your head, “No, I could never ask her to do that. It’s far too precious. Besides, it probably belongs on someone who’s more worthy of it’s beauty.”

Bucky scrunches his eyebrows at you.

“And you’re not?” he asked.

“Of course not. I’m not some pretty, rich aristocrat.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He said, “You’re a beautiful girl, and you’re worthy of wearing the jewelry from here and from places like Tiffany’s.”

You blush and look down, biting your lip to try and hide a smile.

“It’s true.” He argued.

You look back up at Bucky and gaze at him in disbelief.  

All you can manage to say is, “Whatever you say.” In a sarcastic sing-song.

With that, September turned into the ends of October, and the weather got even colder. 

***

You and Trish stand facing each other on the blue mats, sweat glistening on your skin as you breathe heavily. You both eye each other with intense stares, ready for the next move.

“Guard up.” You hear your trainer, Josh, say.

The both of you raise your hands in a fighting position; your feet shoulder width apart.

“Go.”

Trish throws a punch at you, but you block by lifting your arm to protect your face with the elbow. A split second later you wrap that same arm around the one she threw and pull her towards you. You elbow her in the head with your free arm, as best as you could without giving her a concussion. After that you place your hand on the back of her neck and pull her down so you can kick her in the stomach.

Thinking that the combination was done, you let go of Trish and start to back away. But instead, she knocks you down to the floor, catching you off guard. The two of you get tangled in a series of grappling and punches, until Trish over powers you and pins you down on your back. Her legs straddle you and her hands wrap around your neck.

You struggle to get her off, but she doesn’t budge. You place two hands on her left upper arm, wrap your leg around her left leg, and buck up your hips to throw her off balance. You roll over until you’re on top of her, move to punch her but then stop. She looks up at you from behind her arms that she had used to shield herself and smiles at you. You both laugh.

You get off of her and stand up, then reach your hand to help her up.

“That was really good, but you let your guard down back there.” Trish said.

“I thought we were done.” You say out of breath.

“It’s not going to be like that in real life, Y/N. You always have to be ready for the next move.”

You nod. “I know.”

You both walk over to take a drink from your water bottles. You reach to take a towel from your duffle bag and use it to wipe away the perspiration.

Josh walks up to you, “But you’re still doing fantastic.”

Trish nods in agreement.

“You’re almost as good as miss Trish Talks over here.” Josh adds on.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” She jokes.

You both chuckle.

“Maybe a little bit?” you say.

Trish shrugs with a grin on her face.  
“Alright, I’m headed out.” Josh says.

You both say goodbye to him.

It had been almost year ago that you had asked Trish to teach you Krav Maga, an intense form of self-defense that she had taken on a while before you met. She had said that it made her feel more in control and less scared of being alone without anyone to protect her. You wanted to feel that way too, so one day you called her up with the question and she happily agreed. It was a brutal start, but you caught on pretty quickly.

No one could touch you if you didn’t want them to.

You and Trish became friends through an incident that occurred in Hell’s Kitchen a few years back. And because of that, you also had the honor of getting to know her unruly counterpart, Jessica Jones. You rarely ever saw Jessica since she was usually intoxicated, keeping to herself, or working as a P.I., but when you did it was always interesting to say the least. 

You tried your best to see Trish outside of your training sessions, but school and work often got in the way. So you only ever saw her on your days off in the confines of her apartment in a room where she had set up a small dojo to fight in. You would meet up in the evenings and she’d bring over Josh, her original trainer, to help out.

“How’s Jessica?” you ask Trish.

“Well, you know Jess. She’s always saying how she’s done being a hero, but then she just can’t resist the urge to take on another case.”

“What is she doing this time?”

“She was helping a woman find her missing husband, but it turns out that he was involved in something bigger than anyone expected.”

You furrow your brows. “Something bigger, like what?”

Trish shrugged, “Don’t know. That’s all I know so far. I haven’t heard form her since she called me about it.”

You frown and can’t help but wonder about the possibilities. You’re snapped out of it by the sound of a phone ringing. You realize that it’s your ringtone, so you fish for it in your bag. When you look at the screen you see that it’s your dad calling.

“I have to take this.” You say.

Trish nods and leaves the room while you answer the call.

“Hey dad!”

“Hey, my little girl!” he says excitedly.

“How’s work at the station?” you ask.

“We’re doing pretty good over here. Police business as usual. What are you up to right now?”

“I just finished my self-defense class with Trish.”

It was one of the things that put your dad at ease, knowing that you were learning how to defend yourself. Maybe he would have been opposed to how brutal Krav Maga was at times, but as a cop who knew the dangers of the world, he knew better than to complain. Plus, he had liked Trish after meeting her once when he came to visit you.

“Good, good. It makes me happy to know that no one can hurt you while you’re walking down the street.” He said.

“Yup.”

“Anyways, I was wondering if we could have lunch tomorrow, just you and me. We could some pizza by your school.”

You agree happily. You could use some time to talk to your dad, you rarely ever got any aside from occasional weekends.

***

The following day, you meet your dad at the pizza shop that’s around the block from the gates of Columbia University. You both take up a table and order your pizzas. Your dad is in his police uniform as per usual. You hardly ever saw him in anything since he was always working, but you didn’t care, because he was working hard to become a detective for the NYPD, and it made you proud.

You talked to him about that, his efforts to get promoted, and he says that he’s still in talks with the chief. He mentions about stupid people he’s had to deal with so far. Then he asked you about school and work. You complain to him about your co-workers and how tired you always were, but how happy you were to work at the shop.

“Oh yeah, how’s that going?” you dad asks as he takes a bite out of his pizza.

“It’s pretty great. Really relaxing compared to everything else.” You say.

“You don’t get bored being around all that stuff?” your dad’s question mimics the one Bucky had asked you a while ago.

You could tell there was more judgement in his tone, though.

“No, I’ve always loved that stuff, dad. You know that.”

You take a sip of your soda. You dad shakes his head.

“You and your aunt. I always used to wonder why she even bothered with all of that old stuff when we were growing up. But, hey, she made a career out of it. So, who am I to judge anymore?”

You roll your eyes in exasperation. Your dad never understood the things you liked. You continue to eat your lunch together. 

You suddenly wish that you could tell your dad about your new friendship with Bucky. You wished that you could tell your dad a lot of things about your life without him going haywire, but you really wanted to let him know about your new friend. Especially since it made you happy.

“I, uh, I made a new friend while at the shop actually.”

“Oh, really? Man or woman?”

“Why? Does it matter?”

“No, I’m just askin’. But if it’s a guy I might have to run his file.”

“Dad!” you exclaim.

“I’m kidding. I’m kidding.” He chuckles as he holds up his hands defensively. “Alright, what’s your new friend’s name?”

You hesitate, wanting to tell him that James Buchanan Barnes was indeed your friend, but you were afraid of what he would do given his position of authority. He would do a background check and more, no doubt.

“It’s Bu-Becca. Her name is Becca,” you lie, “and she’s very much not a man, so you can settle down.”

You dad smiles.

You spend the rest of your lunch together telling him about “Becca”, and how she loved the 1940s. You try your best to alter the truth, but you still smile radiantly as you picture Bucky’s face the entire time. It takes everything in your power to not accidentally say “Bucky” instead of “Becca”.


	5. The Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your friendship with Bucky is flourishing. In this chapter, your aunt invites him over for dinner. When an unexpected member show up, things take a turn and something drastic is revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit gets intense here. Just sayin.

You sit at the front desk of Blissful Antiques, as you usually did. Except this time Halloween decorations were hung all around you in celebration of the oncoming holiday. You were hunched over a textbook and a stack of papers that was your homework. There was a small witch’s hat at the top of your head that you decided to wear to get in the spirit (even if it wasn’t Halloween just yet).

You turn the pages as you study with a deep concentration set in your face. You’re so engrossed that you barely notice when Bucky came in through the door once again. You hear a chuckle from the other side of the desk.

“Hello, I’d like to buy your strongest love potion, please.”

You look up from your textbook and tilt your head until you can see past the brim of your hat. Bucky looks at you with an amused look on his face as he stares at you in your getup. You narrow your eyes at him.

“Sorry we don’t give love potions to people who don’t need them.”

You look back down at your papers.

Bucky scoffs, “What makes you think I don’t need one?” 

You glance back up and raise your eyebrows at Bucky.

“Have you  _seen_  what you look like? You don’t need one.” you say sardonically.

“Are you saying that you think I’m attractive?” Bucky’s mouth twists into a lopsided grin.

“I’m not,  _not_  saying that.” You say as you hide a creeping blush behind your hat. 

“What’s with the costume, anyway? Isn’t Halloween supposed to be in three days?”

“Yes, but I decided to start the festivities early.” You manage a tired smile.

On top of working, training, and school, you also had midterms to worry about. You had been up studying and now you were tired as hell.

“Halloween is so weird.”

You lean your chin onto your hand and look up at Bucky.

“I bet you didn’t always think it was weird. I bet you used to dress up and take a date out to have fun back in the 40s.”

He looks up as if he was trying to remember and then smirks.

“I’d be lying if I said that wasn’t true.” He looks down at the homework that you have on the desk. “What’s all of that?”

You give a heavy sigh. “Ugh,” and tell him about the tests you had coming up.

“Sounds terrible. Have you taken a break, at least?” he asks.

“Nope.”

He reminds you that it’s lunchtime and that you should take this time to focus on happier things. You almost forgot that it was lunchtime, but of course it was since Bucky always came in at that time. You closed your textbooks and notebooks that you had laying around on the desk.

You stretch as you make your way to the other side of the counter where Bucky is. One side of your oversized sweater slides off your shoulder and you move to fix it, but then Bucky grabs your hand and stops you. You look up at him, puzzled.

“What is that?” he says.

He scrutinizes your bare shoulder and you turn to get a better look at it. There was a large bruise peeking through the sweater, one that you had gotten on your last sparring session with Trish. To you it was normal, but it brought a worried look to Bucky’s blue eyes. You moved to cover up your shoulder once again.

“It’s nothing.” You shake your head.

Bucky detains you once again and pulls down the sweater enough to see the rest of the bruise. It was a reddish purple and about the size of a large golf ball.

“To hell with nothing. How did you get that?”

He pauses and his gaze becomes more intense. 

“Did-did someone hurt you?” he finishes the thought.

Those blue eyes that often made your legs feel like Jell-O now held a protective light to them. You would have been terrified if it was you who was the threat, but instead you felt warmth in your heart because it showed how much he started to care about you.

You look back at him reassuringly and speak in a more calm tone.

“No, of course not, Buck. I assure you, that I would never let anyone lay their hands on me like that.”

He looks back and forth between your eyes, unconvinced.

“Then what could possibly cause a bruise like that?” he demands an answer.  
You take a deep breath and try to come up with some explanation, but all of them sound stupid.  _I walked into a wall. I fell down the stairs._

Instead you say, “One day I’ll tell you.” 

Bucky looks befuddled by your mystery. You reach out a hand to place your fingers under his chin, a spontaneous move that felt right to you.

“I promise. I’m okay.” 

Bucky slips your sweater back over you shoulder and lets out a sharp breath. You drop your hand from his face.

“Alright.” he says, uncertainty still in his voice.

You nod once. “Alright. Now let’s go get some lunch, I’m starving.”

Good thing it was fall and you were covered up. Had Bucky seen any of the other bruises you had received…who knows what he would have done?

***

The rest of the day, you catch Bucky eyeing you like he’s trying to figure you out. He’d look away sometimes, but other times you would have to remind him that you were fine.

You had to admit; you kind of liked having Bucky worrying about you. It was different from when your dad did it. Bucky knew to give you your space and not to bring it up, even though you knew it was plaguing his mind. 

When he was about to leave, you’re surprised by your Aunt Rachel coming into the shop earlier than she usually did.

“Y/N!” you heard her voice call out to you as you had just finished boxing an item for a customer.

You realize it’s coming from the back, where big items tend to be brought in from. You give the customer her receipt, tell her to have a good day, and make your way over to the back. You’re immediately greeted by a big hug from your Aunt as you reach a stack of lamps.

“You’re here early.”

“I know,” she said. “One of the moms from Lily’s soccer team said that she had an old piece of furniture that she wanted to donate, so I told her to hand it over. Now we’re just here to drop it off”

You make a comprehensive noise as she motions towards the double doors that are used to bring in big items.

She looks past you and smiles. “Good to see you again, Mr. Barnes.”

“Please, call me Bucky.” You hear his deep voice from behind you.

You feel Bucky’s warmth radiating from his body as he stands behind you. He had been looking around the store once again while you had been busy. You both glance at each other for a moment, and it sends your heart aflutter. 

“Bucky.” Your Aunt says in agreement.

You kept telling your Aunt about Bucky’s frequent visits, and although she never got to see him since their first meeting, she seemed to approve of your friendship without a question.

Suddenly your Uncle Nick’s head pops in through one of the double doors.

“Hey, Y/N.”

“Hey, Uncle Nick.”

“And uh, Y/N’s new friend?” he directs his attention to Bucky.

You could tell that he recognized him as he stepped out fully from behind the doors.

“Bucky.” Bucky steps forward and reaches out his right hand towards your Uncle.

Your Uncle extends his own and takes Bucky’s with a friendly smile.

“Yeah, I know who you are. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Bucky smiles with pursed lips. Your Uncle then puts his attention to his wife.

“I’m gonna need some help bringing this thing in.”

“I’ll be right there.” Rachel says.

“No, I can help.” Bucky volunteers.

“Oh-okay, thank you, Bucky.” Your Aunt says.

“I’ll be right back, doll.” Bucky says to you.

You nod and he heads back through the doors with your Uncle. Rachel turns to look back at you.

“’Doll’? Well, isn’t he a dream boat?”

You giggle, “Sure, he is.”

“And are the two of you…you know…” she walks over so stand closer to you.

You shake your head as you realize what she meant. “Oh, no. We’re just friends.”

“Are you sure? Because you can tell me.”

“And you know I would, if anything was actually happening, but it isn’t.”

“I mean, he’s cute…very cute. I wouldn’t blame you if you had a thing for him. I mean he is an Avenger after all.”

“Let’s not go there right now.” You look at your aunt in disbelief.

“So you do have a thing for him!” she points a finger at you in “aha!”

“Stop!” you exclaim as you fight to laugh at her ridiculousness.

She was always trying to push you to date more. 

Suddenly you hear the sounds coming from behind the door, and you and your Aunt reach to open them. You Uncle came in facing backwards as he maneuvered a dolly with a big wooden closet on it. As he carefully made his way in, Bucky followed in as he held the closet and helped move it around.

You follow them as your Aunt directs them on where to go. They head over to the section in a corner of the store where all the armoires, vanities, and things alike were stacked together. When they’re done, both Bucky and your Uncle wipe at the sweat that built up on their faces.

Watching Bucky do all of that made you unconsciously bite your lip and your stomach does a flip. You mentally shook yourself out of it as he looks over at you.

“Well that about does it.” Your Aunt says. “We’ll get out of your hair so you can finish your work here, Y/N. I’ll price this thing tomorrow.”

You all start heading back towards the back entrance where they came from.

“Hey, you’re coming over for dinner tonight, right?” she asks as she takes you in another hug.

“Yeah, of course.” You nod.

Her eyes suddenly widen with glee and she looks up at Bucky who was standing next to you, “And you can join us too if you’d like.” 

You tilt your head up to see his face. He rubs the back of his neck and shakes his head. You like the idea of him coming over for dinner, but your stomach sank at the idea of your dad being there.

“No, I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Don’t be silly, you wouldn’t be imposing. We would love to have you over. It’ll be just us and the kids.”

“Wait, dad’s not going?” you inquire.

“Not today. He’s busy at the station.”

You nod without expression, but on the inside you feel relief. If Bucky joined you for dinner, then your dad wouldn’t be there to be judgmental. You now felt the need to have Bucky tag along with all of you.

“It’ll be great. Any friend of Y/N’s is a friend of ours,” you Uncle says from his spot next to the door, “and the missus is making Chicken Parmesan.”

Bucky opens his mouth like he wants to protest once again, but there’s a smile on his face nonetheless. 

“Come on.” You nudge him and flash your teeth, “We don’t bite.”

Bucky’s eyes connect with yours and you could tell that he was sold on the matter instantly.

“Alright.” He gives in.

***

You all sit around the dinner table at your Aunt’s apartment in Queens. Bucky sat next to you, and you could tell that he felt odd. He probably hadn’t done something like this in a long time. As food was being served, your cousins couldn’t stop staring at Bucky. It made you smile. They, especially Tommy, loved anything to do with the Avengers.

Your Uncle had already asked the usual questions that had to do with small talk. You were grateful that he made it easy on Bucky by not asking any hard hitting ones.

However, it wasn’t that far in before questions started spilling out of your cousin’s mouth. He barely let anyone else get a word in for a solid 20 minutes.

“What’s it like being Captain America’s best friend?” Tommy blurted out.

Bucky chuckled, caught slightly off guard. “It’s pretty crazy.”

“I bet. Isn’t he like super strong?”

“He wasn’t always. I remember when he was about your size when he joined the army. Didn’t stop him from picking fights though.”

You all chuckle.

“Have you ever got to use his shield before?” Tommy keeps it up.

Bucky paused, as he seemed to take in Tommy’s sweetness. He was amused, you could see it.

“A few times actually,” Bucky leaned in towards your cousin, “and let me tell you, it was pretty freakin’ cool.”

“Wow.” Tommy gasped.

You couldn’t help but giggle as this continued on. You loved watching as Bucky laughed and smiled, telling Tommy and Lily as much as he could when they asked. All of this as you ate the delicious Chicken Parmesan that your Aunt made.

Of course the burning question that everyone had on their minds soon came up.

“So, do you really have a metal arm?”

Bucky stops abruptly as he was chewing his food. He purses his lips but keeps an upward curve to them. 

He nods, “Yup. That I do.”

Both Lily and Tom gasp in excitement.

“Can we see it?”

You glance at his gloved hand next to you, the left one that was his metal one. It sat next to his dinner plate. He clenched and unclenched it as he became aware it.

“Umm.” He started.

“That’s enough, Tommy.” You Aunt Rachel said. “You don’t have to do that, Bucky.”

“No, it’s okay.” Bucky said.

You peer at the side of his face and he has a pensive look on his face.  He’s contemplating something, then he looks at your cousins.

“I can only show you my hand, but you have to promise not to tell anyone else that you saw it. Okay?”

They both nod and squirm excitedly in their seats. For some reason you feel your heart beat start to quicken. You hadn’t seen Bucky’s left hand since the first time you had met, and you had been aching to see it one more time. You just never wanted to bother him about it, since he seemed so adamant about hiding it. And now, a child had somehow convinced him to reveal it.

Bucky takes his left arm and rests his elbow on the kitchen table. He glances at you reluctantly, and then at your Aunt and Uncle, who have stopped everything to take a look. Bucky used his right hand to slowly slip off each finger of the black glove, and then all at once he took it off.

There’s a silence in the room as the beautiful vibranium (at least that’s what you though it was called) hand makes its appearance. Your breath hitches as you admire the shiny, smooth metal, and the layered look that it had. He clenched it into a fist once more and then flexed his fingers, revealing just how flexible it was. The rest of his arm was covered by his sweater.

You almost wanted to touch it and feel it’s cool surface. You were curious as to how he would feel it if you clasped this hand with yours. Would it feel different to him than with his regular hand?

Tommy and Lily’s jaws had dropped practically to the floor, their eyes wide in awe. 

“Cool!” They both finally managed to exclaim.

Bucky slipped the black glove back on and placed his left hand on his lap. He smiled at everyone, but you could tell that he felt a little self-conscious. You reached out your own hand under the table and rested it on his. His steel blue eyes were soft when you glanced up at him. You watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed.

“I think that’s enough questions from the two of you.” You hear your Uncle say.  
The kids pout and sit in silence. 

But suddenly Lily blurts out after a few moments of silence: “Are you Y/N’s boyfriend?”

Your eyes widen and you retract your hand from Bucky’s and wag your finger at them.

“Oookayyy, no. Nope. That’s enough.” You interrupt before anyone else had a chance to say anything.

You hear a low laugh come from Bucky’s lips. You can feel the heat rise into your face and when you glance at Bucky there’s a bit of a blush there as well. You turn to your Aunt and Uncle, desperate to change the subject.

“So, Uncle Nick, how’s work been so far?”

You finish the rest of dinner as your Uncle talks about his job as an architect. Halfway through a story about something that happened at the office, you lean into Bucky and whisper,

“You didn’t have to do that.” 

He leans in closer so you can feel his breath on the side of your face.

“I wanted to.” He said.

Your lips curve up in a small smile.

“You know they’re going to expect you to come over more often now, right?” you warn him.

“I wouldn’t mind. They’re great.”

You feel a sense of endearment for Bucky as you see his look of genuine happiness. It was like nothing could ruin this evening for the two of you.

Suddenly you hear the sound of a knock at the door. You and Bucky straighten up at the sound.

“I’ll get it.” You Aunt says as she gets up from her seat and disappears to go get the door.

You wondered who it could be this late in the day. You hear voices at the entrance and then the door closes. You look up to see you Aunt emerge from beyond the living room with a weird look in your direction. You see why as you see your father trailing behind her with a smile on his face.

Your heart sinks to the bottom of your chest. He wasn’t supposed to be here today. His eyes fall on you and he’s beaming, but then he looks at Bucky’s form next to you and his face drops.

You force yourself to look a least a bit happy about his presence. “Hey, dad.”

“Hey.” He said reluctantly.

You motion towards Bucky, “This is my friend…the one I met at the shop.”

“Becca?” he asks sarcastically.

“Something like that.”

You can feel Bucky tense next to you as he senses the change in the air.

“Should I leave?” he whispers.

“No.” you answer without looking at him.

You didn’t want him to feel like he wasn’t welcome.

“Kids why don’t you go play in your rooms.” You Aunt Rachel directs the kids.

They protest, but follow their mother’s orders and sulk to their rooms after giving your dad a hug.

***

Your dad gets started on his own dinner as the rest of you sit in your seats, easting a slice of pumpkin pie. There’s an awkward silence, but your Aunt and Uncle try to break it by asking your dad questions every once in a while.

You, however, didn’t say much to him. You were trying to avoid any piercing questions about why the hell you were friends with the Winter Soldier. You didn’t want this to turn into a terrible evening. It had already happened once before when you had brought another guy friend over a long time ago. Your dad interrogated him as if he was a criminal, and you knew it was only bound to happen once again.

Bucky kept his head low and said nothing, only chancing a few looks your way. You wanted to leave with him before it was too late.

“So, Bucky, is it?”

_Too late._

Bucky snaps his head up to look at your dad.

“That’s right.” He answers.

“And, uh, how did you and my daughter meet exactly?” He continues to fork the chicken into his mouth.

“I walked into the shop one day and she was working there. She recognized who I was and she said she wasn’t scared of me.”

“Is that so?” your dad glances at you.

You try and give him a warning glare, but he continues.

“So you decided to go back a few more times and now you’re friends?”

“That about sums it up.” Bucky says.

Your Aunt and Uncle look back and forth awkwardly between the both of them.

“What’s a guy like you doing at an antique shop, anyway?” he inquires with skepticism.

“I, uh, was just walking by. Decided to take a look to pass the time.” Bucky’s words were clipped.

Your dad nods.

“I just don’t know why Y/N didn’t let me know she was having you over. I would have left work early if I knew I would get to meet one of her new friends.”

You set your jaw. “It was last minute. ” You mutter.

You hated having to switch into this borderline hostile demeanor with your dad. You wished you could just be normal about it and talk to him like you usually did.

“So you and Cap…you served in World War 2, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“From what I heard you were true war heroes.”

“He was a part of the Howling Commandos. They saved a lot of lives.” You insert as a matter of fact.

“Right, right.” Your dad nods.

At this point you haven’t touched the rest of your pie and Bucky’s tossing around the remains of his with his fork.

“So it must be crazy for you to be living here in the 21st century. And now you’re living with the Avengers.”

Bucky nods slowly. You dad continues.

“It must be such a huge turn around from what you’re used to doing.”

“And what’s that exactly?” you ask bitterly.

“Y/N.” you hear Bucky chide you lowly.

Your dad ignores your question and he stabs his food with his fork.

“I mean a past like that must be pretty hard to forget…and forgive” He says it so nonchalantly.

“Mike.” You hear your Aunt say.

You’re about to say something, but Bucky stops you by grabbing your hand. You turn to him and see that his eyes are troubled, but also telling you that it’s okay. But it didn’t feel that way at all to you at all.

“It is. But I’m trying my best to live with it.” He answers clearly. 

You dad stops and looks Bucky directly in the eye.

“And I suppose you’re using my daughter to do that?”

“He’s not using-” you start to raise your voice.

“Look, kid – sergeant – whatever. I don’t know anything about what they did to you to make you the killer that you are,” your jaw drops, “ but you can’t blame me for being less than comfortable about you getting close to my daughter after everything you’ve done.”

Bucky winces at his words, but he still nods as if he agrees.

The anger inside of you boils over and you can’t take it anymore. No more interruptions or disregards. No more letting your dad talk to Bucky this way. 

You bang your hand on the table, angrily, making everyone at the table jump.

“You don’t get to decide who I surround myself with. And you know what? You’re right. You  _don’t_  know what they did to him. You don’t know anything about the terrible things that they could have made him do. And I might not know the full story, but I do know that he was brain washed or mind controlled, and that he had no control over what he was doing.”

“Mind controlled.” You dad mutters in disbelief.

You look at him incredulously.

“Mind control didn’t seem like such a stupid idea when it had to do with your own family.” You spit out.

Everyone at the dinner table freezes and slowly turns to look at you. You dad’s face softens a modicum.

“Or did you think it was crazy then, too?”

“Y/N,” he starts defensively, “That was different.”

“How?” you motion with your hands. “How could it possibly be different?”

You heartbeat quickens as your veins fill more and more with rage. Tears start to prickle in your eyes, but you fight them back.

“You were an innocent kid, trying to live your normal life. You didn’t know that someone was going to come and do that to you.”

“I almost hurt someone dad.” You voice was sharp like a dagger. “I almost-”

You didn’t care if you were spilling out too may details for anyone to hear.

“You didn’t know what you were doing. You couldn’t-”

“Control what I was doing? Exactly, dad.” You stood up from your seat. “The same way that that man made me do those things without being able to do anything about it…is the same concept with Bucky, dad. And no matter what you say I’m going to stay friends with him, whether you like it or not. You can’t keep treating me like I’m going to break at every turn.”

“You think that protecting me from people like Bucky is going to do something, but it’s not. It’s the people that did this to him and to me that you should worry about. People like Hydra, the Russians, Kilgrave, and everyone else who chose to be evil. I see things differently now. I’m not the same innocent kid that that happened to. Not anymore.”

Hot tears had streamed down your cheeks and you wiped at them. Instead of sitting down you moved out of the seat and pushed it in.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me I think I’m going to leave. Thank you for dinner, Aunt Rachel.”

“Y/N.” you hear your dad call out.

But you’re already halfway to the door. You see the kids peek their head out through their bedrooms doors as you pass by. 

You grab your coat and purse that hang at the entrance. You hear a chair scrape against the floor and soon enough Bucky was coming to join you. Without looking at him you slip on the coat, sling your bag over your shoulder, and head out the door. You can hear him following closely behind you as you make your way down the stairs and out onto the sidewalk.

The anger and frustration had ebbed away and now you just felt hollow and numb. What had started out as a fantastic evening ended in complete shit. You felt so bad for Bucky and the fact that he had to endure all of that.

You stood on the sidewalk, watching as cars trickled by on the small street. The cold breeze hit your face, drying any leftover tears. Bucky stood on your left, and you could feel his piercing gaze on you. You look up at him somberly and there are so many questions in his eyes.

You sigh and look down at your feet.

“I’m so sorry.” You say. “I didn’t know he was going to be there. I’m sorry you had to hear all that.”

“The judgment, I can handle, doll. What I’m more worried about…is you.”

You bite your lip nervously.

“It’s not always like that, with my dad. I promise. He just has a thing against…”

“Me.” Bucky finishes the sentence.

“And any men in general who come into my life.”

“Is it too soon to ask what that was about back there?”

He refers to the revelations that you had spewed out in your wrath.

“I guess I can’t just drop a bomb like that at the dinner table and hope you’ll let it pass, huh?”

“Not really.”

You sighed and stared back out onto the street. You recollect everything that happened to you during your senior year of college. How everything has been going so good in your life, but then you were whisked away from it by a lunatic. With no reason or rhyme.

“Hey, I’m the last person to be forcing you to tell me anything you don’t want to talk about, but I want you to know that I’m here if you need someone to talk to.” Bucky reassures you.

It had taken you a long time to cope with the events of that time, and you felt like you could finally live your life. You were happy (relatively), but maybe if you opened up to Bucky it could help him with his situation too.

“I think I’ll take you up on that offer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who don't know who Kilgrave is. He is a villain from the show Jessica Jones. I don't plan on delving to deep into that or giving any spoilers for anyone who hasn't watched it, but I will explain who he is in one of the coming chapters.


	6. Let's Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky comes into the shop in a weird mood after a mission, so you do the first thing that comes to mind to cheer him up. Things starts to unfold and everything is perfect, until an unexpected visitor comes along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This episode does not talk about the reader’s past. Not yet. I know, I know, but you’ll forgive me once you read this part I promise. We’ll get there. It’s for the good of the story!!

That’s what you would have liked. To talk about your past with Bucky. But, not just yet.

You already had midterms coming up, so you were cramming as much studying as you could into the remainder of your weekend. You got little to no sleep, and drank heaps of coffee to keep you at least half as sane as you could be. You read flashcard after flashcard, forcing your brain to remember every single thing.

Bucky on the other hand, disappeared to go on a mission with the Avengers. It was top secret, so he didn’t tell you any of the details, but he promised to text you the second he got back to let you know he was still alive. It didn’t help much with the worry that you still had, since you wouldn’t know anything until basically a week later. But you reminded yourself that he was a capable trained former assassin with a metal arm and he could take care of himself.

All you could afford to focus on was your exams, work, and that dreaded fight with your dad at dinner.

You tried pushing it out of your mind, but it was hard when you kept getting calls from him. You were too angry to pick up, so he took matters into his own hands and came by to your school during your lunch hour and honked at you from his squad car. You told him that you needed time, and after much protest, he left you alone. But you knew he would be back once he knew you weren’t busy.

You talked to your aunt about it over the phone. She wanted you to accept his apology, but she also told you not to listen to him when it came to Bucky. That he didn’t know what he was talking about and one day he would come to realize that he’ a great guy.

It wasn’t until Friday afternoon while you worked at your other job, that you got a text from Bucky telling you that he just landed back in New York. In that moment you let out a breath of relief that you didn’t know you had been holding in. If this friendship continued, you didn’t know how you were going to live like this if you were going to feel one edge every time he went on a mission.   
I mean you already only saw him once a week.

***

On the following Saturday, you waited patiently for Bucky to come in. You were excited to see him, you had to admit. You were sure that what happened with your dad at dinner last weekend was going to scare him away, but it didn’t seem like it did. You liked to think it was because your aunt, uncle, and cousins made such a great impression.

A customer had a question about a piece of furniture and you were talking to her about it when you heard the front door open. When you finished talking to the elderly woman, she thanked you and you made your way to the front of the store. Bucky was waiting for you by the desk, holding a brown paper bag.   
He was wearing a leather jacket, a look that suited him all too perfectly. When he heard you come over to him, he locked eyes with you. 

“Hey!” you exclaimed.

As you minimized the space between you, you couldn’t help but look at him worriedly. His baby blue eyes were full of exhaustion and his smile didn’t reach up to his eyes when he greeted you. Did something happen?

“What’s wrong?” you asked, “Did the mission not go well?”

He ran his hand though his hair. “No, the mission went smoothly actually. I’d be happy about it, but I barely got any sleep last night.”

You frowned. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“I, uh, had a pretty bad nightmare last night,” he said, “I get them a lot actually.”

“Do you deal with them by yourself?” you asked.

“Most of the time, yeah. Although sometimes Steve will wake me up if he hears me.”

You reach out and grab Bucky’s free hand. It made you sad that he dealt with all of them by himself. You could only imagine the terrors that haunted him at night.

“I’m sorry that you had a rough night. You shouldn’t have to go through that.”

Something in his expression softened his harshness as he looked down at you.

“Thanks, doll.”

 He gave your hand a light squeeze before averting his attention to the brown paper bag in his other hand.

“I brought sandwiches.” He smiled weakly

You beamed up at him. “Awesome.”

You went to flip the side on the door so it said, “CLOSED” that way no one else would come in during your lunch break.

The two of you sat on the floor next to the bookshelves as you ate your food together. The vintage music rang around the place with dreamy voices singing both vibrant and enchanting songs. Only the elderly woman and her friend were in the shop at the moment, but they seemed to only be looking around.

“How were your tests or whatever?” Bucky asked.

“Excruciating,” you say with an exasperated eye roll, “but I feel like I did okay. Glad that’s over. ”

He nodded slowly in acknowledgement as he smirks. 

“How is everything with the team?” 

“It’s pretty nice when half of them aren’t against you. Although, Sam is still annoying and I have no doubt that Tony still hates me. We all have to live with each other though, so…”

You chuckle. “Everyone’s had an annoying roommate at some point. I guess superheroes are no exception.”

“Yeah, but I have at least six of those.” 

You let out a laugh.

He had scarfed down two sandwiches at super soldier speed, and you were barely finishing yours. He leaned against one of the bookshelves, staring at nothing with troubled eyes. You watched him as you finished the last of your lunch. 

You didn’t like seeing him like this. He had just gotten back from a successful mission and he should have been ecstatic. Especially since he had been so worried that he would mess something up. You had to find a way to cheer him up.

_But how?_

Almost as if on cue, a very jazzy song came on the speakers. Your eyes lit up as you got an idea.

“Hey.” You called to Bucky.

He turned to you with an eyebrow raised. The corners of his mouth upturned as he saw the expression on your face.

“What?”

“Dance with me just like you did in the 1940s.”

He scrunched up his brow and chuckled.

“Are you being serious?”

“Of course I’m being serious.”

“I’m 70 years out of practice, doll. I’m not sure I can even move the same way anymore.”

“Oh, come on,” you got up on your knees, “I’m sure that’s not true, and even if it is, we can both suck together.”

You tried giving him a look that would convince him. He gazed at you and his face broke out into a smirk.

“Okay. Fine, doll.” He gave in.

He got up from his seat on the floor until he was on his feet. He extended his flesh hand down to you and when you took it he helped you up from the floor. He pulled off his leather jacket and set it down on an old stool.

“Oh, I remember this one.” Bucky said with nod as he listened to the song.

He extended his left hand to you and you took it happily. He pulled you in close and placed his right hand on your waist and you breath hitched. You placed your hand on his shoulder. You let your right hand rest in his gloved one, but something wasn’t right.

“Hold on.” You said.

You pulled away from Bucky slightly and reached over to his metal hand that had the glove. 

“Can I?” you asked as you moved to take off the glove.

He eyes on you and your hands on his left hand curiously. He nodded. You slipped off the glove, revealing the shiny metal appendage, and threw it to where his leather jacket was. Finally, you let Bucky take you in his embrace. His cool metal fingers gently wrapping against your human hand. 

The two of you began by swaying to the rhythm of the music, moving your feet left to right as you went. At first, Bucky seemed awkward as he let his body remember the movement. He would hold back. However, as the music continued, he started to move even faster as you followed his lead.

A giggle escaped your lips as he spun you around.

“’Out of practice’, my ass.” You tell him as you spin back around into his arms.

“Can’t a guy be modest, doll?” he grinned.

You shook your head disbelievingly. The two of you continued to bop around to the sounds from the 1940s amongst the antiques. As you looked up at Bucky you could see that there was a boyish smile on his face. It was one that you had never really seen on him before and it was also one that made your heart melt.   
You imagined that this is what he must have looked like everyday back then, before all the bad. 

“Am I doing okay?” you wondered aloud.

“You’re a natural, doll,” he said.

Just as he spun you out again, the music abruptly changed. It was no longer happy and buoyant, but slow and romantic. You and Bucky eyed each other a little awkwardly, not sure whether you should stop or not. Your heart started beating rapidly in your ribs, and considering the closeness between the two of you, you were sure he could feel it.

Neither of you pulled away, instead, you eased up the pace and swayed gently in each other’s hold. Your giggles were traded for conformable silence and your toothy smiles were traded for shy ones. You couldn’t help but rest your cheek on his chest and close your eyes. You listened to the jazzy intro of the song.

Because of this, you were pushed to focus on your proximity. His chest against yours, his hand resting gently on your hip, and his metal one holding yours. You could feel the rising and falling of his chest and it brought calmness to you. You could also hear the beating of his heart. It was getting quicker.

You lifted your head and looked up at Bucky, and his beautiful eyes linked with yours. The way he looked at you made you thankful that he was holding you up because you were sure that they had turned to putty. 

_“I say I'll move the mountains, and I'll move the mountains if he wants them out of the way.”_

The exhaustion and worry were gone. In their place was a look of…adoration? You weren’t really sure, but you wanted him to look at you that way forever. 

_“Crazy he calls me. Sure, I'm crazy. Crazy in love I'd say.”_

“This music is so dreamy.” You say.

“Yeah, it is.” Bucky smiles. “I wondered if I would ever get to do this again.”

“And you almost didn’t want to.” You teased.

“But I’m glad I did. With you.”

“I just want to live in this moment forever.” You admit.

“Me too, doll.”

The two of you had stopped swaying, and you barely noticed. You kept your hold on each other and gazed into each other’s eyes. There was a spark in your heart and you were ready to ignite it. It felt right. This all felt right, being in Bucky’s arms.

He leaned in until your noses touched, and his warm breath tickled your face. You took a deep breath before plunging in and closed the gap between each other’s lips.

The kiss was soft and deep at the same time.  Bucky pressed you even closer to his chest with his hand on your waist. You let go of his vibranium hand and snaked both of you arms around his neck. Your fingers brushed into his long locks. Bucky placed his metal hand on the other side of your waist, but it was light, like he didn’t want to hurt you with it.

The two of your stood there, lips connected, and you would have stayed there until you were all out of breath had the two of you not been interrupted.

At the sound of a woman clearing her throat, both you and Bucky detached your lips from each other and looked at the source of the sound. It was the elderly woman and her friend, and they were both looking at the two of you with amused faces. 

You felt a wave of embarrassment and stepped away from Bucky awkwardly. You saw a flash of red on his cheeks as he turned away from the women’s view.

“I’m so sorry.” You apologized breathlessly. “Do you-do you need any help?”

“Actually, yes. There’s a tea set behind one of the glass doors that I really wanted to buy.” The old woman said.

“Okay. Ummm, I’ll-I’ll be right there. Let me just get the keys.”

She nodded and shuffled away slowly with her companion. You could hear one of them snicker.

You went to grab the keys from the front desk and went over to help the ladies. You saw Bucky on your way to them, leather jacket in hand glancing at you with an embarrassed smile. You were still flustered and your brain had yet to recuperate from the whirlwind.

When you boxed the tea set up and rang up the customers, the old woman leaned in and whispered something to you.

“I’ve been seeing the two of you in here for quite a while now, and I’ve got to say…I was wondering when something was gonna happen.” She chuckled. 

You blush and let out a nervous laugh. 

“Have a good day, ma’am.” You nod to the both of them.

When they leave you let out a deep exhale. 

You couldn’t believe what had just happened. Luckily, the sign still marked the store as closed, and as far as you knew there was no one else but you and Bucky. You turned to go look for him, but found that he was already standing next to the desk a few feet away from you.

His jacket was back on and so was his glove. There was a shy smirk on his lips. You stepped towards him.

“Well…that went differently than I expected.” You say.

“Different good or different bad?” he asked nervously.

“Different good - great.”

He gave you a big grin. You crossed your arms and looked down, and then eyed his gloved hand.

“You know, you don’t have to keep hiding it when you’re with me.” You motion towards it.

He holds up hit left hand so it’s at eye level, looks at you, and takes off the glove once again.

“Force of habit, I guess.”

You admire the metal as he turns his palm away so it’s facing in your direction. You lift your own hand and place your palm against the cold metal of his. You can’t help but smile at how small your hand is compared to his.

You grin at Bucky and you scrunch up your face when you see his expression. There’s complete and utter awe in them as he takes you in.

“What?”

“How-”

There’s the jingle of the bell and you both drop your hands.

“The sign says closed.” You say as you look towards whoever entered the shop.

You do a double take as you see who it is and your jaw drops.

“Steve?” Bucky blurts out in confusion.

Indeed, none other than Captain America himself had walked into the shop. There was a stern look on his features. He donned a thick dark blue jacket and a hat for a disguise.

_Did these boys really think that no one was going to recognize them in a hat?_

“Bucky.” Was all Steve uttered.

Bucky stepped away from you and faced towards Steve. His face changed into something more stoic from a few seconds ago. 

“What are you doing here?” he practically demanded.

Steve crossed his arms. “I could ask you the same thing.”

They looked at each other with intensity, as if they were trying to communicate something telepathically. You started to feel awkward just standing there.

“I’ll let the two of you talk.” You say as you back away towards the inside of the shop.

You nod to Steve in a greeting. “Cap.” He nods back.

With that, you head over to do an unnecessary task in order to distract yourself, but you try to stay close enough so you could hear.

“So, this is where you disappear to every Saturday.” You hear Steve’s voice.

“How did you find me here?” Bucky asked.

“There’s a tracker in your phone, Buck.”

“I always turn it off before coming here.”

“Not this time you didn’t.” Steve stated.

There’s a silence from Bucky, a noise like he’s digging through his pocket.

“Shit.” He mutters. “So you followed me here.” 

“I had to, Buck. You disappear without saying anything about where you’re going and headed off to God knows where. After everything how was I not supposed to be curious or worried?”

“Well…you found me. No danger here.” Bucky’s tone was laced with snarkiness.

“In an antique’s shop in lower Manhattan? Why?”

“I don’t know. I stumbled upon it and now it’s a good distraction. And being around this stuff helps.”

“Are you sure it’s the stuff you’ve taken a liking to and not that girl?”

Your stomach flutters at the mention of you. You couldn’t help but perk you head up as you rearranged some glasses that didn’t need rearranging. 

There’s a pause on Bucky’s end and it made you wish that you could see his face or hear his thoughts. Was he thinking about the kiss you had shared earlier?

“What does it matter?” he finally says.

“I think it matters because you haven’t been with a girl since before the war, Bucky.  It’s not a bad thing to want to find someone after everything you’ve been through.” Steve said. “I’ve also noticed that there’s been a positive change in you recently. Now I’m starting to see why.”

There’s more silence from Bucky’s end.

“Do you like her?”

Silence. The anticipation for his answer killed you. You figured he did have something for you since you had that moment. You just wanted to hear if he actually said it.

You continued on and dusted some paintings that were already clean.

“You might not say it out loud, but I can see it in your face, Buck. And I wasn’t going to say anything, but I saw how close the two of you were when I walked in. You can’t fake that.”

You swear you heard Bucky chuckle.

“No…you can’t,” he said.

There were some indiscernible words exchanged. You tried to get closer to hear, but it was too late.

“We can talk about that later if you want, but there’s an important reason for me following you here.” Steve said more seriously.

“What is it?”

“There’s some loose ends with the mission. Apparently it didn’t end as well as we could have hoped.”

“What the hell happened?”

“I can’t give you all of the details yet. Tony plans on debriefing everyone about it in an emergency meeting. He told me to come and get you so you could be there.”

“Shit,” Bucky sighed, “Alright. Let me just…”

“I’ll wait right here.” You heard Steve say.

You take the duster that you had in your hands and dropped it back where it belongs. Bucky walks towards you from the front of the store and you meet him halfway. He gives you a small smile.

“Any other Avengers plan on stopping by?” you joke.

“I hope not.” he chuckles, but then frowns lopsided.

“What’s wrong?” you ask.

“I have to go handle some top secret business.” 

“Did something happen?” 

He shakes his head. “Nothing you need to worry about, doll.”

He pushes a strand of your hair behind you ear and cups the side of your face.

“But I promise I’ll be back as soon as the meeting is over. I’ll do my best to get here before your aunt does.”

You nod in agreement. “Okay.”

His thumb brushes gently across your skin. He leans in and kisses your forehead.

“I’ll be back.” He repeats.

You watch him as he heads back to the entrance where Steve is. As they exit through the door, Steve waves goodbye to you and you wave back with an amused smile.

You try to get back to work but all you can think about is how close you and Bucky had been. How it felt when you were dancing, and how it felt when his lips had connected with yours. You realized that it was something that you had been waiting for, for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song is "Crazy He Calls Me" by Billie Holiday!!


	7. Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky comes back to the shop after his meeting at the tower, but what he doesn't know is that something happened while he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hold onto your asses because shit's about to hit the fan and I'm gonna cause mayhem. 
> 
> There's blood in this chapter and a gun.

**That same day…**

It was nearly half past three, and Bucky still hadn’t come back from his “top secret business” at Stark Tower. Your aunt usually came at around 4:30, so you still had an hour to wait for him to come and talk freely.

And it wasn’t like you were well informed about these things, you didn’t know how long super hero meetings lasted. You guessed they ran longer than a regular business conference.

You weren’t sure if you should be worried or not. Based on what you had overheard, something didn’t go right with the mission. Maybe Bucky and the rest of the team had been sent off again without a warning. But he would have sent you a message if that was the case, wouldn’t he? At least you would have liked one, especially after the moment the two of you had earlier. You didn’t want to be left in the dark just like that.

You smile to yourself as you replay it all in your head over and over; the dancing, your bodies pressed against each other, the kiss. You still couldn’t believe that it actually happened. What you hated was the fact that you didn’t get to talk about it afterwards as you were interrupted…twice.

You were still dumbfounded by Captain America’s surprise appearance. You guess that you have to get use to it.

You arrange some new pink glassware into one of the glass displays close to the front of the store, forcing yourself to focus on working. It was a slow Saturday, so you hardly saw anyone come in and out. It allowed for a calmer workday.

You hear the door open at the front, and your heart flutters in excitement. You thought it had been Bucky walking through the door.

However, you feel a pang of disappointment as you turn around and take a peek only to see that it’s another customer. He looked middle-aged.

“Welcome!” you call out.

You turn back and continue to put rose crystal cups and plates carefully on the shelves.  You get lost in thoughts about Bucky as you listen to Elvis Presley’s voice play in the background.

You’re dusting off a pitcher when you hear shuffling behind you.

“Excuse me miss,” it was the man and he had a strange accent, “but I’m looking for someone and I think you’d be able to help me out.”

You pause what you’re doing, pitcher still in your hands, and furrow your brow.  _Looking for someone?_

You start to turn around and say, “It depends…who are you looking fo-”

You let out a sharp gasp, nearly dropping the glassware. Your heart fell to the base of your chest and your eyes widened in fear. 

The man was tall and burly. He had thick blonde hair that was slicked back, a short beard to match, and a small scar on the bridge of his nose. He wore a long, dark coat. 

He also happened to be holding a large pistol with a silencer attached to the barrel, and it was aimed directly at your face. His face was contorted into an animalistic grin.

“I’m looking for Captain America and his friend, James Buchanan Barnes.”

***

Bucky walked down the street, heading towards your aunt’s antique shop. The exhaustion had settled in once again, but now there was also anger and annoyance piled on top of it.

Something hadn’t turned out right with the last mission that he and the team had gone on, which is why the meeting had run on for what seemed like forever.  

The original objective of the mission was to take back a piece of dangerous alien technology that somehow ended up in the hands of a rogue Bulgarian group planning to use it for god knows what. But it seemed fairly easy to take everyone out and take it back from them. Bucky, Steve, Sam, Natasha, and Wanda had all gone in and out pretty quickly.

However, two days after the extraction, it turned out that not every member of the group had been taken down. In fact, the leader of the group, Ivan, had a twin brother named Dimo, and he was on the loose.

There had been a security breach within the system at Stark tower while Bucky was gone. Luckily, they were able to shut it down quickly, but not before figuring out who did it. It was the twin himself, trying to find out where they had kept the thing they extracted. So now the Avengers had Dimo to worry about, because there was no doubt that he was hell bent on getting revenge and stealing back the technology. And he could attack at any moment.

After a long debriefing and going over plans of what to do, Bucky had grown irritated and impatient. He had promised you that he would go back to see you, and he had started to see that he might not even get the chance to if Tony sent them out on another mission. As much as he wanted to take this guy down, he decided that he had to go see you even if it was for a few minutes.

Tony almost had a fit and didn’t want to let Bucky leave, but Steve stepped in and convinced Tony to let him go. Bucky swore that he wouldn’t take long.

And how he was late to see you, but at least he got to keep his word. As soon as he left the building, he had left you a voicemail since you didn’t pick up.

_“Hey. You’re probably busy with a client or something, but I wanted to let you know that I am on my way back right now. Sorry that I took so long, turns out the mission isn’t quite over just yet. Anyways, I’ll see you in a bit. Hopefully I’m not too late and your aunt isn’t there yet. That way we can continue with what happened earlier.”_

When he finally reached “Blissful Antiques”, he reached out to open the door. He frowned as he noticed that the “CLOSED” sign was still flipped over. It was almost 4pm, a whole hour before closing. 

Did she really forget to flip it over this whole time?

Bucky pushed the door open and went inside. Immediately his Winter Soldier instincts went off and he could sense that something wasn’t right.

“Y/N?” he called out.

It was dead silent, save for Billie Holiday’s voice singing through the speakers. 

 _“Living for you, is easy living._  
It’s easy to live when you’re in love.  
And, I’m so in love,  
There’s nothing in life, but you.”

It gave the place an eerie feeling, he just didn’t know why. He made his way past the desk and noticed that your phone was resting there. That must have meant that you were still there.

“Y/N?” Bucky called out even louder.

 _Where is she?_  Maybe you were deeper into the store.

 _“I’ll never regret the years I’m giving._  
They’re easy to give when you’re in love.  
I’m happy to do whatever I do, for you.”

As he walked carefully through the antiques, he noticed one of the glass displays had been left open.  Confused, he took a step towards it, and when he did there was a crunch underneath his foot. Startled, he looked down and lifted his booted foot off the ground. There were shards of pink glass all over the floor. The remnants of a vase or something of the like.

The beat of Bucky’s heart quickened instantly. Something isn’t right, something had happened.

“Y/N!” his voice was slowly filling with panic.

He started moving quickly amongst the displays, shelves, and furniture, looking for any sign of you. As he did so he found signs of struggle. There was a shattered display case and dining room chairs had been toppled to the ground along with other things. 

His blood ran cold when he notices bullet casings on the floor and a bullet hole imbedded in one of the bookshelves. 

_Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no._

He would have thought that there was a robbery, but it seemed way more than that. This person had chased you around the store…and they had wanted to hurt you.

His vision started to blur and his breathing became agitated. He scoured every corner of the shop, exposing any nook and cranny if he had to, calling out your name in hopes that you would answer. He was looking for you, for blood…for a body. 

It wasn’t until he reached that corner of the store that was used for old dressers, armoires, and vanities that he found something of significance at his feet. It was a black cane. Bucky picked it up. It was one of those that had a secret sword inside of it, but its head was missing. The weapon inside had been drawn out for recent use.

Bucky dropped the cane back on the ground with a clatter. He searched for the sword underneath a nearby vanity table and the white dresser next to it. If he found it then maybe he would have a clue as to where you were. But as he did so, his eyes landed on something that made them widen and his jaw clench. 

A drop of blood.

Bucky straightened up. His followed as more drops of blood made a trail towards the very corner, behind an old armoire. Bucky hesitated, scared of what he would find if he moved any further. But he kept going, he had to know. He tried listening in to to see if he heard breathing.

As he turned the corner and looked behind the large piece of furniture, he saw nothing but a small puddle of blood, and some of it was smeared against a set of drawers. It was as if someone had leaned up against them. The sword from the old cane lay next to it all.

But no body.

Bucky didn’t know whether to feel relief at the sight or even more fearful. He turned, leaned his metal arm against one of the wooden closets, and groaned. A wave of dizziness and nausea took over. He closed his eyes.

He was sure that he was going to find you dead.

But you weren’t. That’s what mattered, right?

_No._

You might have been alive, but you were still missing. Whoever did this had hurt you - shot you – and they had taken you by force. And what made it even worse was the prospect of - wherever they had taken you - they were probably doing things to you at this very moment.

Images swirled in Bucky’s mind and he curled his hands into angry fists. The thought of all of that brought his blood to a boil. 

Just a few hours earlier you had been in his arms, dancing each other’s worries away. You had done it to cheer him up, he knew, and he had been grateful. It was the first time in a long time that he had been truly happy. Your smile alone was enough to make him crazy about you, and your lips on his were everything that he had ever imagined.

_This is all my fault._

Someone like you didn’t deserve any of this.

It all just made him angrier and more desperate. He had to find you. He had to set things right, because he had brought this upon you in the first place. At least that’s what Bucky thought.

A low growl escaped from his throat.  The rage built up in his chest. He knew damn well who had done this to you. And the thought of anyone laying a hand on you made him want to do things he hadn’t done in a long time. It took every bone in his body not to punch a hole into every thing in his wake. 

Instead, he took a deep breath, brought out his phone, and made a call. He kept his gaze on the blood stains below. 

“Steve.” He breathed out. “He has her. He has Y/N…”

 

“And I’m gonna kill him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops.
> 
> The song is called "Easy Living" by my girl Billie Holiday


	8. A Live One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the hell is Y/N? Who took her? What happened while Bucky was away at the tower? Well, that and a few more questions are answered in this chapter. Bucky calls in the help of some of the team and together they begin to figure out what happened to Y/N.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot of information in this chapter so take a deep fucking breath.
> 
> There's blood, violence, guns, and other weapons in this chapter (I come from Tumblr I'm used to having the warnings on every chapter OKAY! It's for your benefit)

Bucky leaned against the front desk, arms crossed, stuck in a blurry haze. The vintage music was no longer playing in the shop. Instead, voices came from all around him. Voices that he had tuned out several minutes ago. 

After making the call to Steve, it took several minutes for him to calm Bucky down and convince him not to go searching for you on his own. He also asked to get the summary of what Bucky had seen at the shop. Steve said that he would be there as quickly as he could, and for Bucky to wait there for him.

And he almost didn’t. He almost let the rage consume him and lead him out the door…until your aunt made an appearance. It took him out of his reverie immediately. He had almost forgotten that she was supposed to arrive, and it made things so much worse.

It was a terrible thing for Bucky, to have to explain to such a sweet woman that her niece had been taken and was most likely hurt. It was hard to watch her break down in tears right after doing so. It was hard not being able to tell her whether you were going to be okay or not.

Shortly after, Steve had arrived, along with Tony and Natasha. Tony had a plethora of questions for Bucky, wondering how the hell an innocent girl got involved in all of this. Steve tried to do the explaining based off of what Bucky had told him, but it was up to Bucky to do the rest. And now here he was, trying his best to explain everything that he could. 

He had no choice but to spill his secret about how he had been coming to visit you at work for over two months now. That you had met and became friends despite your knowledge of his past. He spared them of the details.

Once he got to the part about finding out that you were taken, he and the rest of them moved into the shop to take a look at everything. He pointed out the bullet casings and gunshots in the furniture, and then ended at the corner where the blood was. He couldn’t help but turn away at the sight. It brought too many possible scenarios to his head.

“I was stupid to think that I could have anything decent in my life.” He muttered bitterly.

Steve rested a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t say that Buck. This isn’t your fault.”

“He found out about her, Steve. He must have known that she was someone important to me. How am I not supposed to feel guilty?” 

Steve opened his mouth to argue, but there was a small gasp.

“Oh my god.” Your aunt was standing a few feet away, having full view of the blood. 

Natasha immediately went up to her and blocked her view of the image.

“You shouldn’t see this, ma’am. Do you have anyone to call?”

With tear filled eyes your aunt nodded, “Yes, I already did, actually.”

Tony came up to stand behind Natasha. “We’re going to do everything in our power to get your niece back, and take down the man who did this, Mrs. Ellis. I assure you of that.”

He paused, and then talked a little louder for everyone to hear.

“We need to figure out what happened here.” He turned to Natasha. “Nat, I’m gonna need you to get all of the security footage from today. We not only need to see how all of this happened, but we need to check to see if there’s anything else on there that we can use.”

Natasha gave a nod.

“I’m on it,” she said, and then turned to Rachel, “Is there a computer or something where I can look through the security cameras?”

“Yes, there’s the laptop that I have in my car. It’s in the back.”

Your aunt gave Nat the keys to her car and the password to the laptop. And with that, Nat dashed off towards the back entrance.

There was the sound of police sirens coming out the front. It startled everyone in the shop.

“Who called the police?” Tony asked in irritation.

“I did. I had to, sorry.” Aunt Rachel said in a small voice.

Bucky’s heart sank as realization dawned on him. The bell at the front of the shop rang, and he saw your father come around the desk towards the middle of the building. He was being trailed by three other officers.

“It’s Y/N’s dad.” Bucky said.

“He’s a cop?” Steve asked.

“Great.” Tony said with mock excitement.

Nonetheless he straightened up and stepped over to speak to your dad, who was practically barreling towards him. He stopped when he reached Tony. The other policemen stood a distance away.

“Officers,” Tony greeted, “I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you to step back. This is official avengers business.”

“Spare me the bullshit, Tony Stark. I got a call from my sister telling me that something happened. Where’s my daughter? Where’s Y/N?” 

“It’s being dealt with as we speak.”

“Dealt with? What is being dealt with, exactly? And why are the Avengers involved in this? I want to see my daughter.”

“Sir-“

“Where is she?” he demanded.

“She’s not here, Mike.” Rachel spoke up.

His eyes went wild, “What do you mean, where is she?”

Tony hesitated, but answered bluntly, “We don’t know.” There was a solemn look on his face.

Your dad’s eyes scanned everyone in the room, as if looking for some kind of sign that it was a lie. Then his eyes landed on Bucky and he looked incredulous. Bucky couldn’t help but avert his gaze. His eyes were filled with remorse.

“It was you, wasn’t it?” he pointed a menacing finger at Bucky, “If you did something to her I swear to god.”

Your dad started to charge at Bucky. Steve stepped in front of him protectively and Tony put out an arm to stop your dad.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Tony chided, “Easy, officer. I assure you that he had nothing to do with this.”

Rachel moved closer to her brother to calm him.

“Bucky was the one who found all of this, Mike.” 

“Someone else took your daughter.” Steve stated.

“No. No, not again.” Your dad pleaded.

Before anyone could ask anything, Natasha came back into the room, the laptop open in her hands.

“Guys, I think you should take a look at this.”

*******

**Earlier…**

“I’m looking for Captain America and his friend James Buchanan Barnes.”  
You looked down the barrel of his gun, then back up at his face. Your body had started to shake but you tried to keep it in control by clutching onto the glass pitcher in your hands. You willed your brain to start working.

“What makes you think that they would be here? The only place I’ve seen them is on the news.” You uttered with as much innocence.

“Don’t fuck with me, girl. I know they were here earlier. You’re close friends with the Winter Soldier, aren’t you?”

He steps closer to you, the gun still aimed at your face.

You shake your head. “He’s just a random customer who comes by sometimes. We barely talk.” You fight to keep your voice level.

“Your mouth says one thing, but your eyes…say another.”

You shoot him a glare. No matter what you said this man was going to hurt you, and you were going to do everything in your power for that not to happen. So you do something, anything, to keep him from doing so.

Your chest starts heaving and you start freaking out.

“Please, please don’t hurt me. I swear, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll tell you where they are, I’ll-”

“It’s not their location that I want.” He says.

“Then what it is? Please, I have a family. I don’t know what they would do if I was-”

You let the glass pitcher fall to the floor in a nervous jumble. 

“Ah shit, I’m sorry.” You let tears fall down your face.

You lean down to pick up the pieces.

“Stop.” He commands.

You pause part way. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

You hear him chuckle. “Stupid girl.”

You gaze up at him from the corner of your eye. He rolls his eyes and the point of his gun wavers. As you hoped it would. You take a deep breath and take your chance. Everything that you had learned with Trish came into motion.

“If I knew it would be this easy then I wouldn’t have – Hey!”

You go to punch him in the gut and kick out his legs from under him with a grunt. He falls onto his back, but he keeps the hold on his gun. You think to move towards the exit at the front, but you see the man starts to sit up, ready to attack. He would definitely shoot you if you went that way.

So, instead, you start running towards the back of the store. You hear him growl, the click of a gun, and then the weird sound of a gunshot muffled by the silencer. It missed you as you jumped behind one of the displays. He shot two more times and one of the bullets hit the glass, making it rain all around you. You raised your arms to cover yourself, thinking of where to go next. Shards of glass landed in your hair.

Adrenaline pumped in your veins. 

You wanted to get behind better cover, so you made for the bookshelves that were across the way. You grabbed a lamp and threw it at him as you did so. He kept firing his gun, but the objects that you threw at him messed with his aim.  As you pressed yourself behind one of the bookshelves you heard a bullet embed itself into the wood. 

“You can’t escape me.” You heard him.

You could hear him put in a new clip of bullets.

You scanned your surroundings for some kind of weapon, but all you could grab a hold of was a wooden stool. You held it up, and braced yourself for the man to come around. 

When you saw his form from beyond the shelves, you hit him with full force. He cried out and another shot was fired into the open before he dropped his gun. You kicked it away and it slid away out of sight. He looked at you in rage.

“Big mistake.”

“I don’t think so.” You said, and stepped onto his foot with full force and punched him in the face.

He took it like a champ and threw a punch at you too. You anticipated it, so you dodged it in time. You throw a few more punches at him as you move backwards, further into the shop. You manage to get into perfect hand-to-hand combat, jabbing him where he least expected it. He blocks you a few times, but then you kicked him successfully. However, the second time you tried doing that, he catches your foot.

He twists it and you cry out in pain. You kick hard until you’re free, but he manages to connect his fist with your face, as you’re distracted. When you feel like you’re about to fall to the floor, he grabs your throat.

You struggle to breathe under his grasp.

“You almost had me fooled back there. Now I see why Mr. Barnes would like you.”

You try to pry his fingers off of your throat, but to no avail. As he squeezes even harder, he lifts you until you’re on your toes. Your eyes start to water and you can barely breathe.  Suddenly, you remember a move that you learned, and put it to use. You raise your arms in the air, twist, and bring your elbow down on his arm a few times, hard. It forces him to let go. 

You practically stumble to your knees when he does so. You notice a container full of canes and grab one of them quickly. He makes to grab at you, but you swing it at his head. You bat it at his leg so he falls to the floor so you could run away.

“Agh!” he howls.

And you speed away, back towards safety. If you couldn’t use the front exit, you were going to use the back. You gripped onto the cane, which had a golden lion’s head at the top. It was one that had a sword in it, you had seen a few of those come in before.

You get to the corner of the store where you had just placed the new wooden closet, and you knew that you were almost to the double doors.

Suddenly you hear gunshots again, and your heart lurches in your chest. 

_The fucker has another gun._

You hear another shot, and then you’re thrown forward with a blistering pain in your left shoulder blade. You scream in agony and you fall face first onto the floor amongst the wooden furniture.

You look at your shoulder and see that the bullet had gone straight through and escaped through the front of your body. Blood had started to pour out onto your sweater. You look behind you and you see the man coming towards you, quickly closing the gap.

You get up quickly on your knees start to half crawl and half drag yourself with your uninjured arm until you’re behind the vanities and armoires. You unscrew the cane, taking out the thin sword within it, your hand grasping the lion’s head with your left hand, which hurt. You would have used your right, but you were using that one to put some kind of pressure on your wound.

You fought to keep it together. You were hoping against hope that he didn’t hit something major.

You push yourself onto your feet. When you heard him come around, you did your best to launch yourself at him once again, but due to your injury, he overpowered you. He twisted you wrist and wrangled the sword out of your hand. He hit you in your gunshot wound with the hilt and you screamed once more. 

It sent you falling on your ass to the floor and it took everything for you not to throw up from the pain. You scooted yourself until you were leaning against some drawers. 

At this point you were out of options. You were sure that you were done for. You just wished that you could have seen your family and Bucky one more time.  
The man towered over you and you looked up at him with a deadly, disgusted glare.

“Are you going to kill me?” your voice was shaky.

He crouched down so he was at eye level with you.

“No…I’m not done with you yet.”

All at once you see him take his gun once again, but instead of pointing the barrel at you, he hits you with the butt of it. There’s strain at the side of your head, and then your world goes black in an instant.

***

The rest of the cops had retreated to their squad cars, so it was only Bucky, the few members of the team, your dad, and your aunt. They were all huddled around the laptop that was perched on an antique dining table, watching the events that had occurred when Dimo had taken you.

Everyone, even Bucky, was left in a silent shock. Except Tony had to speak up, of course.

“Wait a minute. You’re saying that that girl works here, in this shop?”

Rachel nodded.

Bucky said, “Yup.”

“Where in the hell did a shop girl learn how to defend herself like that?” he was baffled.

Bucky had the same question in his mind. You had never told him anything about knowing any martial arts or self-defense. Upon watching the footage, he was dumbfounded at how well you had managed to take on Dimo. He had been sure that he was going to witness you getting beaten to a pulp, but that wasn’t the case.

He had to admit, he was impressed, proud even.

But when he watched the end it brought back all feelings of guilt and anger. Seeing you get shot, knocked out, and then carried away brought his blood back to a boil.

“She’s been taking self-defense classes for a while now. I never asked her what she was learning though.” You dad told everyone.

“Krav Maga.” Your Aunt spoke up.

She was the only person you had ever confided in with the details.

Suddenly that large bruise on your shoulder made sense to Bucky. You had been training for a while now, but you just hadn’t gotten the chance to tell him about it.

“What’s that?” Steve asked, arms crossed.

“It’s a military self-defense system that the Israel Defense Forces created. Essentially, an aggressive form of self defense without the strictness of martial arts.” Natasha explained automatically.

“Well, looks like you’re dating a live one, Barnes.” Tony remarks.

Bucky turns red, “We’re not dating.”

Although that kiss could have changed that.  _Not that I deserve you_. He thought.

He makes awkward eye contact with your dad, who is glaring at him. 

Natasha smirks like she knew something, “I beg to differ.” She whispered.

“I just can’t believe this is happening again.” Rachel’s voice was broken.

“Again?” Tony and Steve asked in unison.

Everyone looked to your dad and aunt with questioning gazes.

“She’s been taken before.” Your dad admitted.

Bucky furrowed his brow in confusion. This was completely new information for him, and he was sure now that there was so much about you that he didn’t expect at all. Never had you mentioned anything like this happening to you before. He tried thinking back to every bit of information that had come out of your lips. Then it hit him…the fight that happened at dinner.  And the bomb of information you had dropped. He connected the dots and it made sense.

“How, exactly?” Tony asked.

“Kilgrave.” Bucky uttered.

Everyone now turned to look at him. He eyed everyone stoically, and then locked eyes with your dad.

“So she told you about it, huh?”

Bucky shook his head. “No, but she was going to.”

He knew that. When the name was mentioned at dinner last weekend, he knew it had significance to you. That Kilgrave was involved in something that happened to you a long time ago. However, things got in the way of you being able to tell him anything about it. You had promised that you would, that’s all that mattered.

“What’s a Kilgrave?” Steve questioned.

Your dad took a deep breath. He looked at your aunt Rachel and she nodded. He began to tell everything he knew about Kilgrave and how you had been taken once before.

“It’s not a what, but a who.”

_***_

_Kilgrave was a twisted man with special abilities. He had the power to control people’s thoughts and actions just by the sound of his voice. He could whisper a few words in your ear and you would do anything for him. He could make you do something as easy as buy him a cup of coffee. He could make you punch a stranger, walk into oncoming traffic, or even kill a loved one – all without question._

_He was tall and British, always dressed to the nines in a purple suit._

_One day, during your senior year of college, you had gone missing. Kilgrave had kidnapped you while you were on your way home from school, and he kept you prisoner for a month and a half. He planned on using to do his bidding and god knows what else._

_The whole police force looked for you that whole time. Your dad became desperate, but never gave up hope that you were alive, even when people told him otherwise. It wasn’t until a month in that he resorted to contacting the infamous P.I. known as Jessica Jones to help him. If anyone was going to find you, by any means necessary, it was going to be her._

_Since Jessica had history with Kilgrave, she rapidly agreed to help. It didn’t take long for her to find you._

_You had been doing an errand for Kilgrave, so she followed you back to his house, one that he had made a man sell to him. When she broke in, you were completely mind controlled, ready to attack her to protect him._

_Being afraid of Jessica’s super strength and inability to get controlled, Kilgrave fled, but not before making you hurt yourself with a knife. Jessica managed to knock you out and brought you to the hospital._

_It had been such a relief seeing that you were safe and out of Kilgrave’s clutches. Out of his control. You cried in your hospital bed as Jessica and your dad told you what happened. Jess even asked you if you knew where Kilgrave could be, and you tried your best to remember, but you had a hard time deciphering what was real or not._

_Just when everyone had thought that it was all over, things went awry. Another cop walked into the room, saying that the building was clear of anything suspicious. His words must have triggered something in your brain, because you were back in Kilgrave’s control without him actually being there._

_Recognizing this, Jessica had tried to calm you down before you did anything, but it was no use. You elbowed Jessica, grabbed your dad’s gun and fired it at the other officer. Jessica managed to tackle down the other man before the bullet hit his skull. Instead, three bullets lodged themselves into the hospital wall._

_Next you point the gun at your father, ready to shoot, but you hesitated. It was like something in you was trying to fight it. Jessica and your dad talked you down as your hands shook on the gun. It almost seemed like you were about to do it, but your dad noticed that your eyes were wavering._

_You kept saying, “I need to get back to him. I need to get back to Kilgrave.”_

_After what seemed like forever, you dropped the gun, and burst into tears. The doctor offered to put restraints on you, but your dad refused._

***

“That whole time, it was like she wasn’t even Y/N. I looked into her eyes and all I saw was darkness. I thought she was going to kill me, and she would have killed that officer if Jessica wasn’t there.”

Everyone in the room was silent, even Tony, as your dad finished telling the story.

All Bucky could feel was shock. He couldn’t believe that you, a person so full of light, had gone through something so traumatic. Something that resembled what he had gone through, because even though it was only for a short period, you had also been mind controlled as well. He wasn’t sure how else to feel.

“I can’t imagine how she must have been the whole time she was with him. It took a long time for her to get over all of that, and to trust herself again.”

“That sounds familiar.” Steve’s voice was barely audible.

He looked over at Bucky.

“Yeah.” Bucky agreed.

“I guess you would understand all that, wouldn’t you?” your dad said.

Bucky looked up at him. His eyes had softened, surprisingly, like he had finally realized what you had seen in Bucky all along. Having retold all of that made him see the parallels.

 Bucky nodded. “More than you know.”

There was silence once again. Bucky bit his lip, pensively. He already felt like shit about the fact that you had been captured, but he didn’t know how he would have felt if he was in your family’s position. To have lived with this gut wrenching fear twice.

He wanted to make it right.

“I want you to know that I care about your daughter, Officer Y/L/N.” Bucky said with vitality. “I promise with every ounce of my being that we will find her and bring her back to you safe. And you’ll never have to worry about her being taken ever again.”

“Even if I have to do it myself.”


	9. Babydoll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, we finally go back to the reader's POV and see where she was taken and what happened afterwards (and then some).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like being obscure in my summaries because I like the element of surprise.
> 
> There's blood, violence, guns, etc. in this chapter.

You slipped back into consciousness with a searing pain in your left shoulder blade and a dull one in your head. The smell of musty concrete, dirt, and copper filled your nostrils.

When you start to open your eyes, you’re looking down at your lap, so you crane your head up. The lighting is very dim, the only source from a small window that was behind you, and your eyes start adjusting to it all. Amidst the fog in your brain, it takes you a while to make sense of where you are.

The beating of your heart starts to invigorate as you realize that you’re in a strange place. You try to move, but when you do, thick bands of duct tape dig into your skin on your wrists and ankles.

You were bound to a chair in the middle of a small room. Everything was made of brick and concrete, and it was completely empty save for a shelving unit and you. An old door with peeling paint was embedded into the wall in front of you. You figured that it must have been an old storage space.

You begin to struggle against your restraints, wanting to be free of them, but a sharp pain in your shoulder stops you. You moan through gritted teeth and look down at the source of discomfort. There was an old rag tied around your shoulder, keeping pressure on the bullet wound you had acquired earlier. A bit of blood had managed to seep through.

Through the pounding headache in your skull, you pushed yourself to remember the events that had led you to be here.

The man. The man that had come into the shop. He had a gun, but you managed to fight him off…until he shot you and brought you here. Surprisingly, he didn’t kill you.

Why? And where was “here”?

An abandoned building most likely. Didn’t villains love holing up in those places?

You felt weak. You must have bled a significant amount before getting there. Considering the fact that you were still alive, it must have meant that he hadn’t hit any major artery. But the bullet had gone straight through you, so there was nothing to stop the bleeding but that makeshift tourniquet that bastard had tied on you. You still needed medical attention, that was for sure. But you weren’t going to get any anytime soon.

You had to get out of there.

You began to struggle against the duct tape once again despite the pain. In your attempt to do so, you moved a little too much and lost balance on the chair. It start to topple over, and before you knew it, you had landed onto the concrete floor precisely on the side with your bad shoulder.

You wince and cry out in pain. When you open your eyes you see stars, and you were sure that you were going to throw up.

Suddenly you hear the door open with a creak. You look up and a big man held the door open for your attacker to come inside. The door was was then closed behind him, and he looked at you with an annoyed expression.

“Stupid girl.”

He stepped over and crouched down next you.

“I knew it was a good idea to tie you up. Can’t have you trying to get away from me like before.”

He grabbed the back of the chair and straightened it back up. You gave him a dirty look.

“What do you want with me? Why did you bring me here?” you demanded to know.

“Isn’t it obvious? You’re my hostage. An insurance policy if you will.”

“A hostage in exchange for what exactly?” you ask.

“A team of Avengers stole something from my brother and got him killed in the process. I want what they stole back and make them pay for what they did,” He leaned down so his face was inches from yours, “So I stole something of theirs.”

“The Avengers don’t even know who I am. Why would they care what happens to me?”

“They might not all know you, but at least one of them does. And I’m betting he’s willing to do anything to get you back.”

_Bucky._

You had almost forgotten that he was supposed to go back to the shop after his meeting. You wondered if he ever actually did. _Of course he did._  You couldn’t help but think of the reaction he must have had when he saw the mess that was made, the blood and realized that you were missing.

The thought made your heart constrict.

What about your aunt and your dad? That idea made you feel even worse. They had already suffered through enough from the first time that you had been kidnapped.

“Yes. I think Mr. Barnes must be planning a way of attack right about now.”

You snapped out of your reverie.

“What makes you think that he would ever come alone?” you retorted.

He gave a chuckle. “Oh, he will. From what I heard, the Winter Soldier is unstable, and if the life of the woman he loves is at stake, then I’m sure he’d be more than willing to comply.”

You sneered at him in disgust.

“You’re stupid if you think he’ll go down without a fight. Even if you managed to get him alone, you and your buddies wouldn’t stand a chance against him.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. He may be a highly trained assassin, but there are ways to take him down, I am sure.” he sounded way too calm. “I mean, he’s lost his metal arm before. Who’s to say it won’t happen again?”

He had a devilish grin.

You were slack-jawed. You hadn’t known that Bucky lost his metal arm before. Your brain whirred, trying to figure out how it could have happened. Vibranium was supposed to be one of the strongest metals, after all. 

“How do you know that?” was all you asked.

“I have my sources.”

There’s a pause.

“You’ll never be able to do it.” Was all you could spit out.

Wherever this man had gotten his information was completely wrong. He didn’t know Bucky at all. He wasn’t unstable at all. But maybe it was better if you let him think that, it was he who was going to lose in the end.

The man shook his head.

He walked over to the shelving unit on the wall and grabbed something from the top shelf. It was a roll of duct tape. He turned to you, an expressionless look on his face. He pulls at the duct tape and there’s a loud ripping noise that comes from it.

“I think that’s enough talk for now,” he says.

He walks over to you as he rips off a piece. You try turning your face away from him, but he grabs you by the cheeks and forces you to face him. He places the tape on your lips aggressively. You look at him with hatred.

“That’s much better.”

He puts his hand in his back pocket and takes out a cellphone - one that he stole, no doubt. He turns on the camera, places it on you, and says,

“Now, smile.” 

***

Bucky and the team quickly returned to the tower, wanting to come up with a plan as quickly as possibly. Tony and Steve filled in the rest of the Avengers on what had happened.

Nobody tried to talk to Bucky the entire time, as they now knew this mission was sensitive for him. As much as they probably wanted to, no one questioned him about the fact that he had a mysterious female friend that was kidnapped. He stood in the corner of the meeting room, and seemed about ready to tear anyone apart.

The only one who didn’t seem to care was Natasha, who went over to stand next to him. She leaned in and spoke in a whisper.

“You know, when I was looking at the security footage back at the shop, I found something really interesting.”

“I think we all saw it, Nat.”

“No, not that, Barnes. It was from earlier in the day, actually. I think you know what I’m talking about.” she gives him a sideways glance. “Not your girlfriend, huh?”

 _The dancing. The kiss._ It never occurred to him that there would be footage of it.

Bucky looks over at Natasha.

“If you show anyone else, I swear-” he starts defensively.

He was not in the mood to deal with the team’s questions or teasing, let alone have an intimate moment exposed.

“Calm down, Barnes. I’m not going to share it for the world to see. I just wanted to say that I can see how much you care about her, and that you shouldn’t blame yourself for all of this.”

“Yeah, I’ve been hearing that a lot.”

“Because it’s true. You still think you’re this monster that Hydra made you, and that everything is your fault, but it’s not. And this girl seems to see that too. Don’t let this ruin that,” she argued.

“It’ll be ruined if she ends up dead.”

“And she won’t. We’re getting her back, Bucky. And from what I’ve seen, she’s a fighter. She’s not going anywhere.” She tried for a small smile.

Bucky looked down at his feet and just nodded. He had to hope that Nat and Steve were right. That everything was going to be okay and that you were going to make it out of this alive. He just hoped that you would forgive him.

Natasha stepped away from Bucky and went to go talk to Sam.

Suddenly, Bucky’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out, confused, since no one ever called him or sent him message unless it was you or members of the team. When he looked down at the screen, there was a text from a strange number.  He opened it, and there was a video attached.

Another text was sent under it.

**Watch alone.**

He frowned in puzzlement. Then he looked up at the rest of the team, no one seemed to be paying him much attention at the moment. Or at least they were trying hard not to.

Was he going to listen to this mysterious message?

Out of curiosity, he left the meeting room and found a corner to view the video. He pressed play, and immediately your face appeared on the screen.

Bucky’s eyes grew into saucers. His blood ran cold at the sight of you. There was duct tape on your mouth, a bruise on your cheek and your fearful eyes were boring into the camera. A male voice with an accent spoke from behind.

“Hello, Mr. Barnes. I don’t think we’ve officially met, but my name is Dimo, and I believe you and your little group of superheroes have something of mine. So in exchange, I took something of yours. I must say, she’s a feisty one. Took me quite a while to get her, but as you can see…”

A hand reached out and moved a piece of cloth that was tied to your shoulder, revealing a bloody bullet hole. You grimaced as he did so.

“It only took a bullet to finish the job. And as you can imagine, there’s only so much time before she bleeds out entirely. Or before I kill her myself.”

Bucky nearly crushed the phone in his hand with how hard he was clutching it, but the video wasn’t over yet.

“What I want from you, Mr. Barnes, is that you bring me back the equipment that was stolen from my brother. Alone. And in exchange I’ll give you back your precious girlfriend. If you try anything or bring anyone, I’ll kill her instantly, and then I’ll do the same to you.”

“So I suggest you get going. I’ll give you a clue to the location soon enough. We’ll be waiting.”

The video ended as you looked straight into the camera, a look of desperation overtook your features. It was like you were looking right at Bucky in that moment.

Bucky closed his eyes as he tried to calm himself once again from punching a hole into a wall. His heart tore in two at the sight of you like that, duct taped, shot, and held prisoner. You were still alive, but you looked weak.

He didn’t know what to do in that moment. Although he knew for certain that he had to go find you. And he had no doubt that that bastard was going to kill you if he didn’t do what he wanted. Thoughts spun in his head.

Should he go alone? Should he abandon all reason and pull this mission by himself?

He tried to think clearly, and he did so for a few minutes, before settling on a decision.

He knew what he wanted to do. He just had to make sure it was done right.

***

The rag on your shoulder was loose and covered in blood, meaning that it was no longer doing its job of keeping the blood at bay. You could feel yourself grow weaker.

After Dimo sent out that video, you knew it was only a matter of time before Bucky would try to rescue you. You just hoped that he would have the rest of the team with him, and that they came up with a plan to get you out of there. God knows how many men were in that building with you, so even if you managed to get out of the chair, you wouldn’t have a fighting chance by yourself. Especially not in the state you were in.

If they took up anymore time, you weren’t sure if you were going to make it.

You sat there in silence, tied to the chair. You had tried so hard to fight out of your restraints, but the impending cold and weakness made it harder and harder to do so. Your fingers and toes were starting to feel numb, there was a throbbing migraine in your skull, you were slowly losing muscle strength, and you could barely think coherently.

Somehow, you managed to find a positive in this situation. At least you were in full control of your mind this time. At least it was your own thoughts in your head. Even if  you had traded a mental prison for a real one. The old you would have never survived this.

_Bucky where are you?_

Even if you only got to see him one last time.

But you were scared for him, what if they really did manage to blow his arm off? No. He was stronger and smart enough to not let that happen.

The door opened once again with a creak, and Dimo came stalking towards you.

“Mr. Barnes is taking an awful amount of time. I guess he doesn’t care about your survival after all.”

You sneer at him, wishing that you could say something through the piece of tape covering your lips.

The big man guarding the door came through this time.

“He’s here,” He growled, “And he’s alone.”

Your heart jumped.  _Bucky was here…by himself? Did he really let Dimo sway him like that?_

Dimo turns to the other man and a predatory smile breaks out on his face.

“Good,” he turns back to you, “We’ll be ready for him.”

He reaches out and grabs your chin, forcing you to look up at him.

“Seems like he does care about you after all.”

He stands up straight, turns around, and leaves the room.

Why would Bucky come by himself? As capable as he was of taking out these people on his own, there was something else that they had planned. You knew it, and Dimo seemed way too confident about it.

And you knew they were never going to let either of you get out alive.

You had to do something; you had to get out of this chair and out of this room for good. You didn’t care what hurt anymore; you had to use the last of your energy as best as you could. You have been captive twice too many times now.

You lowered your mouth to your right hand and at the same time, reached for the piece of tape.

It took a lot of stretching and tugging, but you finally caught at the edge of it, and ripped it off of your face. It pulled at your skin with a sting, but you let out a sound of relief. You decided to use your voice now that it was free.

“Bucky!” you screamed. “Bucky I’m over here!”

You didn’t know where in the building you were, but you were hoping that Bucky would find you.  

The door opened and the other large man barreled inside. He looked livid. You fought to free a limb, and you could feel the tape on one of your legs start to loosen up. The guard came towards you.

You heard a small explosion from beyond the room. It startled the both of you for a split second.

 _What was going on out there?_  You wondered if Bucky was alright.

Suddenly your leg was free, and as the man closed the space between you, you kicked out at him. But it was a weak kick, and he was able to stop it.

“Shut your mouth!” he barked and hit you in the face.

The force of the impact made you fall over in the chair once again, except this time there was a crack. You feel yourself want to slip out of consciousness, and the room spins. There’s gunfire now, and you could hear it going on outside.

For a second you thought that the crack had been your arm…that you had broken it with the collision, but there was no pain. You looked around for the source of the sound, and to your luck, the arm of the chair that you had landed on had snapped off at one end.

You looked up, and the man was no longer paying attention to you. He was headed out the door, probably thinking that he had knocked you out.

So you will yourself to tug at the piece of wood until it comes away from the chair completely. You pull it out from the duct tape on your wrist, finally freeing one of your hands for use. You wiggle the other leg free, and as you’re freeing your last wrist, you hear:

“Hey!”

Dimo had come back into the room. There was a gun in his hand and a fresh cut above his brow. You got up as quickly as you could and used the chair as a shield. You nearly stumble back to the floor, because you could barely keep yourself upright.

Dimo had a wild look in his eyes as he lunged at you. You hit him with the chair, and he growls. He rips it away from you and pushes you to the floor. You land hard with your full weight, and bang the side of your head on the cold concrete. And with that, you feel yourself getting pulled away from the real world. There’s no more strength left in your body.

Another explosion rang out and you could feel the ground shake beneath you.

“Guess I won’t be needing you anymore.” You heard Dimo say.

There was the sound of a gun clicking, it sounded far away in your ears. You knew that it was pointed to you once again.

This was it. He was going to shoot you again, and you couldn’t even move a single finger to stop him. But, before he could pull the trigger, there was a crash. Like the sound of wood splitting in half.

“Get away from her!”

It was Bucky’s voice. There was an animalistic sound and a gunshot.

_Am I dreaming? Am I dead?_

“Bucky, no!”

Steve’s voice.

There’s a struggle going on, you could hear it.

“Bucky stop!”

“I’ll handle him.” A female voice.

You hear footsteps and feel yourself getting pulled into someone’s lap.

“Y/N. Y/N.” Bucky’s voice was raw and desperate.

He put one hand behind your head, and you felt warmth from his flesh hand on your cheek. He shook you lightly.

“Wake up, Y/N. Come on, babydoll. Please, please, wake up.” He sounded on the verge of tears.

 _Babydoll._  You let out a hum at the sound of the word.

Even though the darkness was pulling you away, you willed your eyes to open, if only to let him know you were okay.

As you peeled them open, you saw Bucky’s face peering down at you. His hair cascaded down around his face, which had a few scratches on it. His ocean eyes were dark and filled with anguish. The sight of him made you smile weakly.

You heard him breathe out in relief. His gaze softened.

“You came.” You reached out to touch his face.

“Of course I did, doll. I’m here now. You’re safe.” His voice was still rough, but took on a soothing tone.

You could only imagine what he actually felt.

You dropped your hand. You couldn’t keep your eyes open anymore. Bucky hoisted you up in his arms, careful not to hurt your injury. But at this point you could barely feel it anymore. Your head was rested against his chest.

“I knew you would.” you mumbled.

You slipped into unconsciousness as Bucky carried you away in his arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay!!


	10. I Don't Deserve You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Although your rescue was successful, you still came out with a severe injury. In this chapter is your recovery, but also a conversation with a certain super soldier about your feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything's okay! Everything's alright! You got through it! Now you can enjoy this lovely breather of a chapter. There's angst but, most importantly, there's fluff.

Bucky sat down on the chair at the edge of your bed in the medical floor at Stark Tower. He had just finished having a conversation with Bruce. When he took his seat, he looked up at your propped up figure. **  
**

“Banner said that I should try and talk to you. He said that sometimes people can hear you even when they’re unconscious and that it could probably help wake you up.” Bucky started.

“So, that’s what I’m going to do. It’s weird, but I’m going to try. And I know how much you love hearing about the stupid shit that I would did back in the 1940s, so I’m going to tell you another story…okay?”

His voice was sad, but he tried to sound hopeful. He studied your face. Your cheek was still bruised from having been hit there. Your shoulder where you had been shot was wrapped up in white bandages. It made Bucky frown at the sight of it all.

He had almost decided to go alone on that mission to save you, but he decided against it. If he was going to get you back, it was going to be the right way: with a plan.

He showed the video he had gotten to the rest of the team and they immediately started coming up with a plan. Bucky suggested that he go in alone, or at least make Dimo think that he had gone in alone. It was the only way that he wouldn’t kill you on the spot and would be unprepared.

Tony whipped up a fake version of the device that Dimo had wanted. He had actually rigged it to serve as an explosive, so the moment Bucky threw it to the ground it would explode, thus serving as a signal for the rest of the team. Everything had gone smoothly, except for when he heard you screaming out his name, which almost made him lose it.

He threw the device and caused the explosion. The team came in, and Dimo and his minions had tried blowing up Bucky’s arm with an explosive but had failed. When he realized that everything was going awry, Dimo fled to the room where he had you hostage. Bucky followed soon after, and good thing that he did.

He had almost killed Dimo when he saw him towering over you, gun pointed at your head. The rage had taken over, and he charged at him. He used his metal arm to deflect the bullet that Dimo had fired, and wrapped his vibranuim fingers around his throat in an instant. Steve had called out to him, but he could barely hear him from beyond the roaring in his ears.

Bucky could have crushed his windpipe in a second and made sure that he never laid a damn hand on you ever again. But then Steve called out to him again, and then both he and Natasha had to snap him out of it before he could follow through with his dark thoughts.

In the end, it was your crumpled form on the concrete floor that truly pulled him out of his fury. After that all he wanted to know was whether or not you were okay. When he dropped down next to you, he was suddenly living his worst nightmare. All of those thoughts that had crossed his mind when he was sure he would find you dead at the shop came back, but this time it was worse.

When he saw the blood on your sweater, he for sure had thought that he was too late. That you had bled to death and you were gone. He pulled you in his arms and he called out to you, willing you to wake up. When you did, and a smile broke out on your face, he felt like he could finally breathe after feeling like had been drowning.

Still, you were on the verge of death, but Bruce and a few others on the medical team had managed to patch you up in time. But with the immense blood loss, concussion, and god knows what other injuries, it had taken a toll on your body. Now, here you were, going on over three days in the medical floor without having woken up. And Bucky hardly left your side for a second.

It worried everyone else. Sometimes he would forget to eat, so someone would have to pop up with some food and remind him to do so. He only ever got up to get some water or go to the bathroom. Steve, Nat, Tony, or even Sam always volunteered to watch over you for him, but Bucky refused. They even resorted to sending out Vision, Wanda, or Clint. The only one who managed to get him to take a shower and change his clothes was, surprisingly, Wanda.  

“If it was my brother, I would do the same. But you have to take care of yourself if you want to be alive when she wakes up,” she said.

To everyone else, he argued that he wanted to be there when you woke up, or in case anything else happened.

He hated seeing you like this. He hated that you were hurt. He hated seeing you without a smile on your face or without some funny remark coming from your  mouth.

He missed hearing your laugh. He missed how you would force him to read books that you liked and made him tell you what he thought the next week. He missed the way you looked at him, like he wasn’t the monster that he felt that he was, like he was the complete opposite. And even though he had only felt them once, he missed your lips on his.

No one had ever made him feel the way that you do, not even before the war, and it scared the shit out of him.

“Okay…” he said.

He shook his head and put a stop to this thoughts. Instead, he focused on telling you a story about one of his adventures with Steve. It was unusual at first, because he felt like he was talking to himself, but he forgot about all of that as he continued. It helped to take his mind off of things and to bring some form of positivity as he recollected the events that he was telling you. By the end he was chuckling.

“And of course, the punk had to get into a fight, like he always did. He never did know when to back down from one, which is why I was always ready to be ready to kick someone’s ass to save him from getting beat to a pulp. But before that we had a lot of fun…”

He trailed off as he finished the story, and became aware of his surroundings once again.

“You would have had a lot of fun back then, doll…”

A sad smile played on his lips, but then he frowns again.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N,” he whispered.

He reached out and caressed your cheek with his flesh hand.

“People like me, we don’t get a lot of good things in life…I guess I can see why.”

He dropped his hand and looked down at the floor.

“I don’t deserve someone like you,” he said.

***

You were in a weird state between being conscious and unconscious. Every now and then you would be able to hear conversations around you, but you couldn’t move or make a sound. The only thing that indicated that you were still alive was the heart monitor next to you.

People had come in and out; Steve, Tony, Sam, Natasha, and you swore you had heard your dad come in. The team had all tried to coax Bucky into letting them take a turn in watching over you. Bruce and a few other doctors had also come in to check your vitals and your progress.

As you slipped in and out of the darkness, you could still feel soreness around your body. It felt like you had been run over by a steamroller, but you didn’t feel as weak and cold as you did before. Whatever they had done to keep you alive was working, and you were slowly recuperating your strength.

You weren’t sure how long you had been out, but it all felt like an intense sleep. The one voice that you would always hear was Bucky’s. He seemed to be the one that never left the room, while the others only ever popped up once in awhile. But that was about it, he only ever spoke when someone else spoke to him. Otherwise, he would be silent. The only indication of his presence would be a faint touch of his hand on yours or on your cheek. It was enough to bring you more and more into awareness, until he stopped and you fell back into the haze.

Suddenly, he decided to break his silence and speak to you directly. He started telling you a story when from when he and Steve were kids. The more he talked, the more you felt yourself cling to his words. It was like he was handing you a rope and pulling you back to the real world.

Even though your body couldn’t do it, you were smiling and laughing internally. You loved it when he told you things about himself. He had been shrouded in mystery for so long, that when he finally opened up it made you happy, honored even.

You heard him chuckle, but then he stopped suddenly. You wondered what had happened.

“You would have had a lot of fun back then, doll…”

He sounded sad again.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N,” he whispered.

You could feel his warm touch on your cheek, you wanted to lean into it.

 _Sorry for what?_  You wanted to say.

“People like me, we don’t get a lot of good things in life…I guess I can see why.”

His words baffled you.  _No, no, no. This isn’t your fault_.

You damned your body for not being able to move.

“I don’t deserve someone like you,” he said.

You wanted to throw your arms around him and tell him that it was okay. You wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that he deserved everything. You wanted to let him know that he could have you if he wanted.

_I have to move._

You tried wiggling your fingers and your toes, hoping that it would translate from brain to body and come to fruition. You willed your eyelids to peel open. With every command you felt yourself grow stronger and stronger. But it seemed like nothing would happen.

_Open._

With that, you felt all control come back to your body. Bright light entered your pupils as you opened your eyes, making you scrunch up your face. As they adjusted, you moved them around until they landed on Bucky. He was sitting in a chair to your right at the edge of the bed. He was looking down at his hands, stoically, and his hair rained down around his face.

You move your right hand and start inching it towards him.

“Bucky.” Your voice comes out hoarse from your dry throat.

His head snaps up and his eyes widen in surprise. You reach your hand out to him, palm up.

“Y/N!” he exclaims, and takes your hand with his metal one. “You’re awake, oh thank God.”

He stands up and uses his other hand to lightly grab the side of your head to plant a kiss on your forehead. He leans back and looks at you with a joyful expression. There were dark circles under his eyes, indicative of the lack of sleep he had.

You’re a little puzzled. “Where am I?”

You couldn’t help but wonder since you clearly weren’t at a regular hospital if the Avengers were involved.

“Avengers Tower. There’s a whole floor for medical purposes. They brought you here because they wanted to give you the best care.”

“Ohh,” you pause in thought, “How long was I out?”

“Almost four days.”

“Damn,” you muttered.

“Yeah, they said you would pull through but I still worried,” he said.

Suddenly you give Bucky a tired smile. “I liked your story.”

He stood up straight, but kept his hand on yours.

He chuckled and knitted his brows together, “You heard that?”

You nodded, “I did. I heard all of it.”

He let go of your hand and you frown slightly. He rubbed the back of his neck with his right hand without looking at you. You reached out and touched his chin, making him look at you.

“Hey,” you chided.

His eyes were remorseful.

“Whatever guilt you feel or blame you’re putting on yourself - stop.” you say. “Because the only person I blame is that asshole who took me in the first place. For you, I feel nothing but gratitude, and happiness, and…”

For some reason you couldn’t get the last word out.

_Love._

Maybe it was the time or the place or the sheer fact that it was a terrifying thing to say, but you knew that you felt it. Especially after having a near death experience.

Bucky looked down at you studiously. You pull your hand back and clasp your hands together.

You finished your statement with something else. “Just, don’t beat yourself up over this. I could never live with myself if I became the source of your pain. Okay?”

Bucky kept gazing at you with the same thoughtful expression. He bit his bottom lip, and then nodded in agreement.

“I’m just glad you’re okay, doll.”

***

Soon enough, Bucky called Bruce Banner in so he could check on you now that you were awake. You hadn’t met him before then, but he was very calm and friendly. It made you wonder how someone like him could get so angry to the point where he turned into the Hulk.

He told you that you would be spending at least one more week at the tower before they could let you go. It would take a few months for the wound to actually heal properly, though. The only thing you felt disappointed about was the fact that you wouldn’t be able to do Krav Maga with Trish for the time being.

Suddenly, Steve popped in as well as Natasha. Steve was happy to see that you were awake. Natasha introduced herself and seemed very excited to meet you. She plopped herself down at the edge of the bed to talk to you.

“I’m just glad I finally get to meet the girl that Bucky’s been hiding from us.”

Bucky rolled his eyes.

“I saw the way you handled yourself against Dimo, and I gotta say…I approve.” she nodded with a smirk.

You chuckled. You figured that she was talking about the security footage.

“Thanks.”

“Who knows, maybe we could spar sometime. I could show you some new moves.”

A big smile broke out on your lips, “Maybe after I finally heal.”

“Definitely.” Natasha giggled.

She looked behind her and then back at you, leaning in close to only you could hear what she was about to say.

“Hold on tight to this guy, alright? He needs someone like you.”

You raise your eyebrows as you realize that she’s referring to Bucky. You glance back at him quickly, there was a confused frown on his face, and then look back at Nat.

“I will.”

She winks at you and gets up from the bed. “Hopefully we’ll get to know each other more. Now that you’re going to be here a while longer.”

“Yeah.” you say excitedly.

When she left Bucky asked, “What did she say to you?”

You innocently said, “Oh, nothing important.”

Someone had called your family, because they had all come rushing it not long after Bruce finished doing your check up. Your dad, aunt, uncle, and even the kids had gone out of their way to visit you. They showered you with hugs, kisses and flowers. You were sure Tommy was going to jump on your bed before they held him back.

“Y/N, I didn’t know the Avengers were your friends that’s so cool!!” he shouted.

You giggled.

“We got to meet Iron Man and Captain America. Isn’t that awesome?” Lily squealed the last word.

“Did you get hurt doing a secret mission for them?” Tommy gasped, “Are you an Avenger now?”

You tilted your head back and laughed. “No, Tommy, I’m not an Avenger.”

As everyone else continued to talk to you, you couldn’t help but notice that Bucky and your dad were in hushed whispers in the middle of the doorway. For a second you were worried that maybe your dad was saying something rude, but when they finished talking they both had small grins on their faces. Your dad joined the rest of the family while Bucky hung back and leaned against the doorway.

You caught Bucky’s eye and he nodded at you with a smile. You returned it. However it happened, it relieved you to know that there was some kind of peace between the two of them.

 

After what seemed like a long time, your family finally left to let you rest. The only ones left were Dr. Banner, Bucky, and Steve. You felt tired and your shoulder was pulsating. Your perception of time must have been off, because before you knew it, it was night time.

“You should really get some rest, Y/N.” Bruce said, “I know you’ve been sleeping for almost four days but it’s the best you can do to get better.”

“He’s right.” Bucky said.

“You too, Bucky.”

Bucky furrowed his brow.

Steve chimed in,“You haven’t slept properly this whole time. She’s awake now, you can rest, Buck. Get some sleep.”

Bucky opened his mouth and then looked in your direction.

“I’ll be fine Bucky. I’m not going anywhere. It’s not like I can, anyway,” you say.

“If you want, you can take one of the beds in the other rooms. Just for tonight.” Dr. Banner suggested.

That seemed like a good idea to Bucky. “Alright.”

The other two started to head out the door. Bruce said that one of the nurses would come by if you needed anything.

“Goodnight, Y/N.” They both said with friendly smiles.

Bucky was about to leave too, but he stopped and went back over to you. He kissed the top of your head and you closed your eyes, taking in his act of affection.

“Goodnight, doll.”

“Goodnight, Bucky.”

***

You didn’t know how much time you had been sleeping before you heard it. The strange noise that was coming from beyond your room. It had woken you up, and you just didn’t know how to place it.

At first you ignored it, and had started to go back to sleep, but then it resounded again. You listened carefully now, waiting for the next time that it would happen. And then it startled you. It was louder now and broke the silence of the medical floor.

It was a scream. A male scream.

_Bucky._

You bolted upright and winced a tad from the tug in your shoulder.

You heard it again, his scream and then he called out something that you couldn’t understand. Not from where you were. Your heart started to race…he was having a nightmare.

“Bucky!” you called out.

But the noises continued.

“Bucky, wake up!” For some reason you hoped that it would be enough, but you were too far away.

You had to get to him.

On cue, one of the nurses on duty came barging in.

“Is everything okay?” she sounded worried.

You shook your head, “No. I need to get to him. Can you take me to Bucky?”

You started moving the sheets aside to free yourself.

She help up her hands, motioning for you to stop. “No, miss. You can’t get out of your bed, you’re still too weak.”

“But he’s having a nightmare!”

The nurse moved to head out the door. “I can wake him up if you want, it’s not a problem.”

“No!” you made her jump, “I have to do it, please. Please, just help me get to his room.”

“But Dr. Banner said-”

“I know, I know, but he saved my life. He’s alone, I can’t just let him suffer by himself.”

You felt tears prickle in your eyes.

She crossed her arms, “Okay, but just this once.”

“Thank you!”

She went out really quick and came back with a wheelchair for you. She helped you get off the bed and onto the wheelchair, and started wheeling you and the IV to the room next door. Bucky’s cries could still be heard and you could feel your heart breaking.

The nurse opened the door and pushed you inside the dark room. Your heart hurt as you saw Bucky curled up in a ball, sweat gleaming on his body. His face was all screwed up in agony and he was breathing heavily. You told the nurse to leave you next to his bed.

“You don’t have to come back.” you said.

She looked like she wanted to protest, but instead she sighed and left the room to just you and Bucky. As she shut the door, Bucky let out another scream. You immediately reach out to him and tried shaking him awake.

“Bucky!” you said, “Bucky, wake up.”

He whimpered and turned onto his back. His vibranium hand clutched at the sheets aggressively.

He mumbled, “Y/N,” and then yelled “Let her go!”

Your breath hitched at the sound of your name in such a distressed tone.

“Bucky. I’m right here. Bucky, it’s okay.” you coaxed.

You tried using something else.

“James,” you raised your voice.

You got up on your feet as best as you could and took Bucky’s face in your hands. “James, it’s me. I’m alive. I’m safe.”

You let go of his face and wrapped your arms around his torso.

“James.” you repeated it a few times more in a soothing tone.

Suddenly Bucky relaxed and he stopped talking.

“Y/N?”

You pulled away from him and stared down at him. His eyes were open and was startled at the sight of you. There were tears streaming down his cheeks. The darkness made his eyes look a deep blue, but they were full of horrors.

“Y/N?” he panted, “What are you doing here?”

You plopped back down in the wheelchair.

“You were having a nightmare. I made the nurse bring me here,” you said.

He sat up.

“No, doll, you’re supposed to be resting. You shouldn’t have done that.”

“Don’t worry about me, Bucky, you’ve done enough of that. Let me worry about you for once,” you argued.

“I can’t believe you made the nurse wheel you over here.” he shook his head. “I should take you back.”

“Don’t you dare. I wasn’t just going to sit in my bed and listen to you while you were in pain.” you frowned.

You reached a hand out to him and he took it in his right hand.

“What happened? In your dream?” you asked. “You were calling out my name.”

He eyed you nervously.

“You know you can tell me,” you went on, “It’s good to talk about it.”

Bucky’s hand was shaking in yours and so was the rest of his body. He ran his left hand through his hair and took a deep breath.

“It was like I was reliving you getting captured all over again, except it was worse, much worse. There was blood everywhere. I couldn’t get to you, no matter how hard I tried,” he looked down at your hands clasped together, “and the next thing I knew you were dead.”

You gave his hand a squeeze.

“Are your nightmares usually like that?”

He shook his head somberly. “They’re usually about things that I did…when I was the Winter Soldier. It wasn’t until recently that….that you started being in them.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed.

“Well, I’m here now, Bucky. I’m alive.” you took his hand and placed it so that he could feel the pulse on your wrist. “You see? My heart’s beating. This is real. I’m real.”

There was an adoration in his eyes when he looked at you. The corners of his lips upturned, breaking the painful expression that had been on his features.

“Yes, yes you are,” he agreed.

He adjusted himself so that he was lying on his side. It allowed him to be much closer to you.

“You amaze me, you know that?” he admitted.

Your heart flutters and a blush spreads across your cheeks.

“Really?” your voice is small.

“Really,” he stated, “ I used to think that you would start getting scared of me, but you never did. Instead, you became my friend, and I didn’t want to question it, because those days that I would see you became the best days of this new life.”

He intertwined his finger with yours.

“They were my best days too,” you smiled.

“After everything that I’ve done. I never once thought that I would find someone that would care for me. There’s Steve, but that’s different. You’re different.”

He mentioned how he saw that you could actually defend yourself.

“Oh yeah, I meant to tell you about that. I started training after-”

“Kilgrave?” he watched your expression, “Yeah, your dad told us everything.”

You’re taken off guard. You hadn’t expected Bucky to know about your past already, but it also took the burden of having to retell those events, from your shoulders.

All you said was, “I told you that you’d be surprised at what I could stomach.”

He chuckled, “You were right about that.”

“That’s why I’m not scared of you, Buck. I know what real monsters are like, and you’re not one of them. I almost killed someone, even my own father, because some man had made me do it. And the thing is, is that I was watching it all happen. My body was moving, but not because I wanted it to.” your heart ached at the memory.

“I know that feeling all too well,” Bucky pushed your hair behind your ear.

“But I’ve learned that it wasn’t me who wanted to do it. Which is why I want you to know that I’m here for you, James.” there was something about using his real name that made it more intimate. “I might seem like some shop girl that you met at an antique store, but you make me feel…more than that.”

You leaned in closer to him with your arms resting on the bed.

“And no matter what you think, I don’t plan on going anywhere,” you finish.

His face was inches from yours, and you could feel his hot breath fanning over you. Bucky looked back and forth between your eyes, as if trying to figure out if you were real or not. There was so much love there, so much more that he was showing compared to when you had danced.

“You’re not just a shop girl, doll” he started, “And I don’t deserve you…..but I’ll do everything to make sure that I do.”

He leaned in and collided his lips with yours. You could feel your injury aching as you pushed yourself into him with your elbows, but you didn’t care. He placed his flesh hand on the back of your neck and it sent shivers down your spine.

The kiss was much more passionate this time, no holding back. The two of you were sure of your want for each other. Your tongues probed each other’s mouths and his soft lips kept crashing hard against yours. His scruff tickled your skin. There were the sparks once again, as if heat radiated from the two of you.

Maybe the prospect of death made you both realize just how much neither of you wanted to lose the other.

When you finally disconnected, Bucky said, “I like it when you call me James.” 


	11. Finale - The Offer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the conclusion to this story, the reader finally graduates! And it's during her ceremony that she looks back at a her life in recovery. Specifically, an opportunity that Tony Stark offered her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sniffles* 'tis the end my friends. I know, I know, this series ended for me a long time ago, but it always makes me sad. This thing is my baby.

It was the middle of May and the weather was already transitioning into a hot summer. You sat in a white chair in front of the Columbia University library amongst the sea of graduating students. You were wearing your baby blue cap and gown, waiting for it to be time to line up and get your diploma. **  
**

You hair and makeup was done, and you were finally out of that damned sling after so much time wearing it.

These past six months had flown by so fast, yet you felt like so many important things had happened. One crazy thing in particular popped into your head which had set off a lot of things for your future in the world.

You thought back to the morning after you had gotten into Bucky’s room.

***

“Well, this is just great.”

“How did you say she got here, again?”

“The nurse who was taking the night shift said that Y/N made her take her in the wheelchair. Apparently Bucky was having a nightmare and she didn’t want to stay put.”

“This girl is just full of surprises.”

“Yeah, no wonder Tin Man likes her.”

“We should probably wake them up.”

“Yeah.”

“Alright. Rise and shine, you two.”

You’re suddenly woken up by Tony Stark’s voice. You open your eyes and groggily rub at them. You feel Bucky start moving next to you as you lift your head from his shoulder. You see Tony, Steve, and Bruce standing at the doorway of the hospital room Bucky had chosen to sleep in.

Instead of having Bucky take you back to your room last night, he had sat up the bed enough for you to sleep on with your injury. He helped you onto the bed and took the spot next to you. You ended up falling asleep on his chest, as he wrapped his metal arm around your waist, careful not to hurt your shoulder. He had been hesitant about it, but you told him that you didn’t mind at all.

The two of you had slept peacefully, without a sound…until you were woken up and brought back to reality by three annoyed Avengers.

“Good morning,” Steve sang.

Bucky pulled his arm away from you and you both sat up. Sleepy glances were exchanged between you both. Bucky looked irritated at the other three.

“Sorry to to ruin this sweet little picture, but last time I checked you were supposed to be in your own bed…healing.” Tony pointed to you.

You turned your attention to Tony with puffy eyes. His arms were crossed in a fatherly manner.

“Dr. Banner said that I had to sleep, but he didn’t say where,” you remarked.

“Yeah, well, you’re lucky that the nurse knew where you were otherwise we would have thought that there was another kidnapping situation on our hands.”

You snorted, “That’s pretty dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Maybe, but a lot of dramatic things happen around here.”

Bucky spoke up. “It won’t happen again, Stark. There must be something important that you wanted to say or did you just come here to scold Y/N?”

Tony gives Bucky an indignant look. “As a matter of fact, yes.”

“We wanted to talk to you, Buck…alone.” Steve said.

Bucky furrowed his brow, looked at you and then back at Steve.

“Is it serious?”

“It’s nothing bad, but it’s important.” Steve clarified.

Bucky nodded, “Okay.”

“And I need to get you back to your bed and change your IV.” Bruce had started talking now and it was directed at you.

You smiled at him. “Alright.”

You were really starting to appreciate his surprisingly calm nature.

Bucky pushed himself off of the bed and you swung your legs over your side so Bruce could help you get in the wheelchair. You felt Bucky’s hand touch yours and you looked up into his blue eyes. He was leaning across the bed towards you.

“I’ll be back to see you when I’m done.” He said in a low voice.

You grinned, “Can’t wait.”

He stayed there for a moment, eyeing the others before doing anything. Once he saw that they were looking away, probably on purpose, he planted a quick kiss on your lips. Your heart did a flip as he pulled away and went out to join Steve and Tony.

Meanwhile, Bruce and another nurse take you back to your own room. As they wheel you over, you notice the three other men making their way down the hallway towards the elevator. Once you’re in bed, the nurse changes your IV and gives you antibiotics.

After that, you’re left alone for what seemed like forever. They had given you a remote control to operate the TV that was hung up on the wall so you wouldn’t get bored. You had watched a few of the Friends reruns, but your mind wandered to Bucky.

What had they needed to talk to him about? The last time he was called away it was because there was a complication with the mission, so you couldn’t help but wonder. But Steve had said that it wasn’t anything bad.

After a long time, Bucky came back. There was an odd look in his eyes but he tried covering it up with a smile. He sat down in the chair next to your bed.

“What was that about?” you asked curiously.

“Nothing. Just going over everything that happened in the mission is all.”

“Oh, okay,” you said, but you weren’t entirely convinced.

You spent the rest of that week getting frequent visits from the different Avengers, including your family. Everyone wanted to know who you were, which meant visits even from Vision, Clint, and Wanda Maximoff (whom you thought was really sweet). It seemed a little odd to you how someone new would pop up to come see you, but you didn’t really mind. Bucky was always there, to no surprise, but you found that Natasha and Steve were the other two who stopped by very often. You even became comfortable around them by the time you had to leave

Finally the time came for you to be discharged. Your Aunt had brought you fresh new clothes to change into, which the nurse helped with, and your arm was put into a sling. You felt much better now that you were out of the hospital gown, showered, and about to go home.

You waited at the edge of the bed in your room as they had told you to. You didn’t know why, but you guessed that they wanted to talk to you about something.

Out of nowhere, you heard whispering coming from beyond the door. You perk your head up so you could hear better. You even tried your best to lean closer to the door, but all you heard was muttering. They were male voices, maybe even a female one.

Suddenly the handle turned and the door opened, and you had no time to make it seem like you hadn’t just tried to eavesdrop. It made you jump back and away from the door. You relaxed when you saw that it was Bucky, but following closely behind him were Steve, Tony, and Natasha, who smiled and waved at you. You frowned in bewilderment.

You peered at Bucky, with a look that asked him what was going on. All he did was cross his arms and raise his eyebrows at you with a faint smile. You eyed everyone else, who had taken places in front of your bed.

“What’s going on?” you asked slowly.

You suddenly felt like this was some kind of intervention for something you had no idea about.

Tony looked at Steve. “Do you want to start or should I?”

“No, go ahead,” Steve said.

“Okay,” Tony started, “Ms. Y/L/N, we’ve had the honor of getting to know you a little bit this past week, and to say the least we’re all a little intrigued by you. So, I’ve done the courtesy of looking up your file since you fell into our hands.”

“Courtesy?”

He kept going, “You grew up in Queens and your dad’s a cop. Your mom was a teacher and you lost her to cancer when you were twelve. You’ve been a straight A student, earned you a bachelor’s degree at Hunter College, and then got a scholarship to do your M.B.A. at Columbia. All the while you’ve been studying psychology. Is that correct?”

He was just stating facts about yourself that you already knew. Why was he listing them out like that?

“Yeah…so…?”

“So, what I’m saying is, you’re pretty intelligent and motivated. We all know just how able you are to defend yourself, and based on that fact that you’ve been kidnapped twice, you already seem to find yourself in unusual situations. Mix that all together and you’re already more interesting and impressive than a normal human being.”

As flattering as his words were, you still had no idea where Tony was trying to get at. It made you a bit uncomfortable the way everyone else was just watching you as the man spoke to you. They all knew something that you didn’t. You glanced at Bucky once again to see if he would give you a clue, but all he did was nod in reassurance.

“And as it turns out…we’re looking for someone just like that.”

You’re stunned and your eyes grow into saucers.

“Wait…what?” you choke out.

Steve finally spoke. “We’ve been looking to recruit a new member for our team, and we were wondering if you wanted to join.”

Your jaw dropped in awe and disbelief. You couldn’t believe what they were saying.

A laugh escaped your lips. “You want me to be an Avenger?”

“Well, you wouldn’t become an Avenger immediately. You’d have to train and start by going on smaller missions, but yes, eventually you would.” Tony said.

You looked at Bucky.

“Is this a joke?” you voice was a sharp whisper.

He chuckled and shook his head. “No, it isn’t, doll.”

You turned back to the rest of them.

“But I’m - I’m not…”

“What? Is there another career choice that you had your heart set on?” Tony knitted his brows.

“I mean…I was supposed to go to med school, but…no not really.” you say hesitantly.

“Does this sound like something you would want to do?” He asked.

“It’s amazing actually, but I don’t have anything special…” you stuttered.

“Believe it or not, you don’t need a suit of armor, powers or super serum to fight in a battle.” Natasha piped up. “Clint and I do a good amount of work without ‘em.”

“And like Tony said, you’d have a lot more training before you could actually go out into the field,” Steve said. “After that, you would be going on missions with us and everyone else on the team.”

You struggled to find words to say. You would be lying if you said that the idea didn’t excite you. Never in your wildest dreams did you ever think that you would be a candidate to join the Avengers. And it wasn’t like your life was normal before all of this, but you just never thought that you were superhero material.

“I don’t know what to say…”

“Say yes.” Bucky said abruptly.

You whipped around to him.

“Or at least think about it,” he continued, “At first I thought this was a stupid idea to begin with, it’s a dangerous job, and we only just saved you. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense.”

“How?” you were genuinely curious to see his point of view.

In a way, you wanted him to convince you.

Bucky walked towards you and stopped until you were only a few feet apart. Your attention was now on him and only him.

“You’ve told me and proven to me time after time that you have the guts to handle what most people can’t. This job is not just about being able to fight or having abilities. It’s more than that. It’s about saving lives from the same kind of people that hurt us and more.”

“And..didn’t you say that you were trying to figure out what you wanted to do with your life? What if this is it? What if us meeting wasn’t some crazy coincidence? You might not see it right now, but you have things that not many people have, and I might not have had much time here yet, but I know you’ll fit right in.” he finished with a smile.

This all seemed so surreal. But maybe he was right. Maybe they all were. You had encountered so many crazy things in your life and ever since what happened with Kilgrave you felt like there were bigger things in life for you to do. You just never knew what it was about. And now, here you were, being recruited by the a group of superheroes, because they saw something in you that no one else had.

Your eyes continued to lock with Bucky’s.

Then Tony said, “If you’re really unsure…you still have quite some time to think about it.”

Your attention snapped back to him.

“You need at least three months of healing time, and if I’m not mistaken, you have a whole semester left until you graduate from Columbia. So…that should be enough, don’t you think?”

You nod slowly. “I guess so…”

Little did they know that your mind was basically already made up to begin with.

***

It didn’t take long before you decided on giving Tony Stark your answer about joining the Avengers. In reality, it hadn’t been much of a question. You had been so unsure of what you wanted to do with your life for such a long time that when the opportunity arose to become a superhero, it seemed to make more sense to you than becoming a psychiatrist.

Of course, you were still baffled by the fact that they would even consider you Avengers material, but Bucky had reassured you multiple times that you were perfect for the team.

The thought of him made you smile.

Your relationship with Bucky had flourished so beautifully since that night. Even though you couldn’t work on Saturdays like you used to, the both of you would still stop by together whenever you felt like it. Every now and then he would visit you at your apartment in Hell’s Kitchen and help you with tasks that you needed two hands for, since you had your left on in a sling.

It was great to see him become more and more comfortable with you as time went on. You also love the way he made you feel both safe and empowered at the same time.

Now, you reach for the locket around your neck. It was the one you had admired at your Aunt’s shop for as long as you could remember. When you stopped by one day to visit, you noticed that it was gone and thought that it was gone forever. However, Bucky had surprised you with the gift on Christmas evening.

***

You had given him a leather bound journal as his present that day. You were nervous about it, but he absolutely loved it. You figured that he could write both old and new memories, because you knew writing was a good way to cope with things.

After opening his gift, he handed you a small black box with a red bow on it. You glance at him before opening it and he has a lopsided smirk. You slowly pop off the lid with one hand and peer inside.

You gasp and look up at Bucky in shock.

“No.”

He snorts, “Yes.”

“James.”

“Y/N.”

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

You reach into the box and take out the piece of jewelry you had been admiring at the shop for what seemed like ages now. It was a silver locket in an octagonal shape with a lotus flower engraved into the middle. You hold it up in your hand.

“Here, let me help you put it on.”

He reached out his hand and you handed him the locket.

“Turn around,” he instructed.

You did as he said and his hands came around you, placing the locket around your neck. You lifted your hair so he could clasp it together.

“There.”

When he was done, you let go of your hair, and the locket rested gracefully against the top of your sternum. You turned back around to face him and he admired you from where he sat. Suddenly, he stood up from his seat and held out his hand to you.

“Come here.”

Although confused, you took his hand, and he led you to a mirror that was by the entrance. He placed you in front of it so you could see how you looked with the necklace on as he stood behind you. You loved the way that the piece of jewelry seemed to have found a home on your chest, it looked like it belonged there.

You ran your fingers over the grooves of its surface.

“You see? I told you you’d look beautiful in anything,” Bucky said.

You found Bucky’s eyes in the mirror and looked at him with the utmost love that you felt. He wrapped his arms around your waist and returned the same look. His chest against your back warmth throughout your body and you couldn’t help but rest your head against him.

“Thank you, James,” you said.

“Of course, doll.”

You turned your head up towards him and planted a kiss on his jaw. He hummed and then turned his head down so you could kiss his lips.   
You looked down at the locket and opened it. It was empty as you had expected.

“Now I just have to find pictures to put in it,” you said

“I’m sure you’ll find something.”

***

You opened the locket and glanced at the pictures inside. On one side was a picture of your mom, smiling a beautiful, before the cancer took her. And on the other side was a picture of Bucky. It was one that he had given you from the 1940s, so his hair was short and there was no beard. Both pictures made your heart swell, especially in this moment. After this, you were going to start a new life that you had never thought you would be a part of.

Telling your family was the hardest part. For three months you had kept the whole thing a secret, even from your Aunt Rachel. You weren’t sure what exactly you had been waiting for since the time was never going to be perfect, but you wanted to be somewhat mentally ready to do it. Luckily Bucky was by your side the whole time, reminding you that you had to tell them at some point. So on the day that you finally decided to do so, you took him along. They already invited him over so many times, and it felt right to have him there.

After dinner, while the kids were playing in their rooms,  your Uncle provided the perfect opportunity by asking you what you had planned on doing after graduation. Slowly but sure, you dropped the bomb about your recruitment.

Their faces were ones of pure shock. Your dad’s especially, was one of horror.

“Are you joking?” your Uncle asked.

Your Aunt was flabbergasted. “The Avengers…want you to be…one of them?”

You furrowed your brow. “Is it that unbelievable that they would want me?”

“No, of course not, it’s just-”

“Insane.” your dad interjected. “Don’t you know all of the dangerous things that the Avengers deal with? Aliens, killer robots, gods with gold horns.You could get killed.”

“I think it’s pretty clear what I’m getting myself into, dad, but they all think I’m capable of handling it. Quite frankly, so do I.”

“What happened to medical school?” he waved his hands around in question, “You’ve worked so hard for it. After everything, you still choose to throw yourself back into the fire instead of choosing a normal life?”

You rolled your eyes. “Normal”. Your life surpassed “normal” a long time ago, and you were sure there was no real way of going back.

“Dad, you’re a detective. You throw yourself into the fire all the time and you love it. This is my chance be someone that I want to be,” you argued.

He shifted his dangerous gaze towards Bucky.

“And you, you’re okay with this. After what you saw that they did to her?”

Bucky tried taking on a calmer tone than you did. “This is different. There would be training involved and there would be more control involving the missions. Your daughter is capable of doing great things, detective. I used to think that she needed protecting too, but after getting to know her, I realize that she doesn’t need it. She can do this.”

The discussion went on for so long that you were starting to feel dizzy from the back and forth. Needless to say, it didn’t end that well.

“Whether you want me to or not, I’ve made up my mind. The second I graduate I’m joining them, whether or not you want to support me is up to you,” you said.

Once again you found yourself storming out of the place with Bucky in tow. Except that time, he had stayed the night at your place.

***

It had taken the rest of the semester for your dad to realize that this was a thing you were doing and he had to accept it. It took a long emotional talk, but you got through to him. Your Aunt and Uncle came around much faster, although they were still very worried about you. But they had known Bucky long enough to know that they could at least trust him to look after you. You were going to be in the hands of superheroes, after all.

Your row is called up to line up. You’re both excited and nervous about finally getting your M.B.A.. Six grueling years of secondary school had finally come to a close. All the hard work had finally paid off, and to your dismay, your students loans had been paid off as well by none other than Tony Stark himself.

You had been worried about money when you had to stop working due to your recovery, but Stark made sure to take care of that. One day you came home to a check in the mail with his name signed on it. Immediately you called him using the phone number he had given you a while back.

***

“Did you really just send me a check for $5,000?”

“Oh yeah, I figured that it would cover this month’s rent, groceries, and bills. I’ll be sending one over every month until you get here,” Tony said on the other end.

You wanted to burst out in laughter from the craziness, “Is this real?”

“Of course it is. Barnes mentioned that you were out of a job due to your injury, so I decided to do you a favor. Take it as a complimentary gift for joining the team.”

“Okay…” you weren’t sure how to react.

“Oh and by the way, I took care of your student loans.”

You shook your head, not sure that you heard right.

“What?”

“All your student loans have been paid for, courtesy of Stark Industries.”

You almost dropped your phone from your hand. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. You had hardly maid a dent in your impending loan debt since you first got it, and now it was gone by the snap of Iron Man’s fingers.

“Uh - I - I don’t know what to say,” You were reeling.

“A simple ‘thank you’ would suffice.”

You took a deep breath, calming the craze in your brain. 

“Thank you, Tony. You really didn’t have to do that.”

“Of course I did. Couldn’t have you worrying about debt when you’re going to be helping us save the world, now could I?”

***

At last, it was your turn to get your diploma.

“Y/N Y/L/N” the dean called out.

You stepped up onto the small stage, and as you did you heard clapping and a small group of people cheering for you. You smiled because you knew it was your family. You grabbed your diploma, shook hands with the dean, and took a picture.

You had done it. You were finally free.

After the ceremony was finally over, and you received hugs from numerous classmates, you went over to look for your family towards the steps of the library.

Your heels clacked against the floor as you scanned the crowd of people.

“Y/N!” you heard a female voice call out.

You followed the sound of it.

“Y/N!” there were multiple voices now.

You snapped your head towards them and then you saw them, your small family joined by a well dressed Bucky. They were carrying balloons and flowers in their hands. You quickly walked over to them and caught your Aunt in a big hug. You followed by doing the same with your dad, uncle, and the kids. Once they congratulated you, you stepped over to Bucky who had a wide smile.

His appearance took your breath away. He was wearing black pants, a white dress shirt, and black tie. The sleeves of the shirt were rolled up, exposing the grooves of his human and vibranium arms.

You get up on your tip toes and wrap your arms around his neck. He wraps his arms around your waist and lifts you up off your feet. You giggle into the crook of his neck and then pull your head back to look into his beautiful blue eyes. His hair was pulled back into a bun at the back of his head, so his sharp features were fully exposed.

His pink lips called out to you, but your family was watching, so all you did was give him a quick peck on the cheek.

“Congratulations, doll.”

“Thank you.” you said through a stupid grin. “You clean up pretty good, James.”

He chuckles, “I tried my best.”

Bucky slowly let you back down on the ground and intertwined his flesh hand with yours.

“Let’s take pictures!” your Aunt said excitedly.

You all got together and started taking group photos as well as photos by yourself and with everyone individually.  

When you were done, and you all headed out to eat, and afterwards you went to walk around in Central Park. You and Bucky hung back from the rest of the group hand in hand. You had taken off your gown back in the car to reveal a nice summer dress.

Circular, pink scars were on the front and back of your left shoulder, now.

“Are you ready?” Bucky asked suddenly.

You instantly knew what he was referring to. You were supposed to start your training in a week.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

“You’re not regretting your decision, now, are you?”

You glanced up at him. “No, of course not.”

“Okay, good, because I’m kind of looking forward to you moving in.”

“Now you’ll have one more crazy roommate,” you giggle.

“Yeah, but you’ll be my favorite.”

You breathed a low laugh.

“It’s just, who knew that my first encounter with you in the shop would lead to all of this?” you said.

“Yeah, it’s pretty crazy how it all turned out.”

“ I mean, I thought I would never see you again. I thought I had scared you away.” you reminisced. 

“But you didn’t.”

“Which makes me happy,” you say.

“Good thing I decided to go back and pay for that vase.”

“Which was way more than $150 by the way.”

He groaned, “I knew it.”

You both laughed.

“I guess it all just goes to show that great things come in unexpected places,” you said thoughtfully.

“Well, I’m glad I went into that antique shop, because now I found my one great thing.” Bucky stopped walking and peered down at you, “You.”

He placed a metal finger under your chin, carefully.

“You always know what to say to make me melt, don’t you?”

He smirked, “It’s that 1940s charm, babydoll.”

There was so much adoration you had for this man. You didn’t know how it was possible for one person to make you feel so many emotions at once, but he did. You wanted to give him everything, because he deserved everything. 

This man that was supposed to have been a monster in the eyes of many, but all you ever saw in him was the real man that he was. Not the Winter Soldier, but Bucky Barnes. The man who was troubled but kind. Often silent, but funny. Stoic, but soft.

And now the both of you were going to face the dangerous world together, head on.

And you wouldn’t have wanted to do it by anyone else’s side.

“I love you, James Buchanan Barnes,” were the words that fell out of your mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed this series as much as I did writing it.


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